Quality and Quantity in American Education: Forty-sixth Annual Schoomen's Week Proceedings [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512802153

Table of contents :
Editor's Preface
Contents
I. General
Diversified Schools for Diversified Communities
Existentialism and the Education of Twentieth Century Man
II. Comparative Education
Comparative Education
A French Professor's Remarks on American Education
III. Higher Education
Responsibilities of Colleges and Universities for Training School Personnel
Libraries and Laboratories
IV. Administration
Recent Court Decisions Affecting School Policies
Professional Organizations and the Present Scene in Education
V. Teaching Modern Languages
Foreign Languages in the Elementary Schools: Possibilities and Dangers
The Teaching of Modern Languages in Secondary Schools
The Achievement of The German Novelle
VI. Vocational Education
Changing Skill Patterns of Occupations for which Training is Needed in the Atomic Age
Νavy Training Programs
Changing Objectives in Metallurgical Education
Educational Implications of the Demands of the Technological Economy on Industry
Demands of the Technological Economy on Industry and Implications for Education
VII. The Exceptional Child
The Unmet Needs of High School Students
Treatment of Psychological Casualties among Elementary School Children
How Much Can We Teach Mentally Deficient Children
What Foundation for Democracy?
Gifted Pupils in the Elementary School
VIII. Secondary Education
Television and the English Teacher
The English Teacher and Mass Communication
The Contribution of Dance in the Education of Children – The Need for Communication and Creative Release for the Individual
The Importance of Fostering Creative Expression in the Secondary School
Geography in the High School
IX. Elementary Education
What the Elementary School Teacher Has to Learn from Psychology
Controversial Issues in the Teaching of Reading
Writing for Young Readers
Modern Approach to Handwriting
Putting Spice into Spelling
Creating Arithmetic Readiness by Use of Exploratory Materials
Reinforcing Learning in the Elementary School Subjects
Social Studies Skills for Children
Development of Self-Discipline in Children
Appendix: Schoolmen s Week, 1958
Index

Citation preview

Quality and Quantity in American Education

University of Pennsylvania Schoolmen's Week

Schoolmen's Week Meeting October 8-11,

19

Quality and Quantity in American Education Forty-sixth Schoolmen's

Annual

Week

Proceedings

edited by

F R E D E R I C K C. G R U B E R

Philadelphia U N I V E R S I T Y OF PENNSYLVANIA

PRESS

© 1960 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: E37-118

Printed in Great Britain By W. & J. Mackay & Co Ltd, Chatham

Editor's Preface after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the American people embarked upon what was to become the greatest adventure that any nation has ever undertaken, the education of all its children at public expense. The necessity for state aid in financing universal education has long been recognized. As early as 1524 Magdeburg, Germany, attempted to provide a state program of elementary education as suggested by Luther. In 1647 the colony of Massachusetts recommended that a system of elementary education be provided as a bulwark against the Old Deluder Satan and that it be supported by public funds or pro-rated among parents. Jefferson proposed a state school system for Virginia in 1796 and Pennsylvania and North Carolina had made similar recommendations in their constitutions twenty years before. "It is an axiom in my mind," wrote Jefferson to Washington in 1786, "that our liberties can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction." When Prussia lay prostrate at the feet of Napoleon in 1806, Fichte wrote his stirring Addresses to the German Nation, and thirty years later the Prussian school system was a model for the rest of the western world. Horace Mann who well deserves the title "The Father of the Common School" used his influence as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1837-1849) to foster the common school movement and the training of teachers in his state, using the Prussian system as a model. State systems of elementary education were formed rapidly and laws compelling attendance in these schools began to be adopted. The curriculum began to be expanded to include such subjects as history, geography, nature study, art and music in addition to the fundamental three R's. The elementary school increased in length until at the close 5

W

ITHIN A GENERATION

6

Editor's Preface

of the century the eight year school became the customary type. The first public high school was established in Boston in 1821. While tax supported high schools were established early thereafter in our big cities, the greatest number were established after the Civil War and especially after the Supreme Court decision in the Kalamazoo case had established a community's right to tax itself for the support of free public secondary education. Today there are some 23,000 public high schools. Since 1870 our population has increased from 40 millions to approximately 180 millions, and our public high school population from less than half a million to approximately eight million. Thus our high school enrollment has increased almost four times as much as our population. During the last decade the enrollments in higher education, both public and private have seen even a more phenomenal increase. In describing the formal educational system a recent report states: 1 "Forty-three million Americans—one out of every four people in the nation—go to school. Almost two million Americans educate them in 150,000 institutions of learning. We have used our educational system as the basic instrument for realizing our ideal of equality of opportunity. Our schools are overcrowded, understaffed, and ill-equipped. . . . These pressures will become more severe in the years ahead. . . . Elementary school enrollments will rise from some 22 million today to about 34 million by 1960-1961. By 1969 high schools will be deluged with 50 to 70 per cent more students than they can now accommodate; by 1975, our colleges and universities will face at least a doubling and in some cases a tripling of present day enrollments." Over the last half century the nature of our labor force has changed. The need for professional and technical workers has more than doubled, and the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers has decreased over twenty-five per cent. Almost half of present day occupations require a high degree of skill and considerable educational background. Recent international developments in science, especially in atomic and nuclear physics make apparent the need for creative scientists, and statesmen with broad training, wide experience, and sound judgment. A depression, a world war, increased political pressures, 1 The Pursuit of Excellence. Panel Report V of the Special Studies Project, pp. 19-21, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1958.

Editor's Preface

7

and a changing social and economic scene have shown the necessity for training in basic skills and of developing a flexible, adaptable personality. About half of our working force is engaged in occupations which have developed in the last fifty years or less. It is in this setting that we find the problem suggested in the title of the forty-sixth proceedings of Schoolmen's Week, Quality and Quantity in American Education. How can we, in the face of rising numbers provide the type of education that will promote the happiness, well being, and usefulness of each individual and at the same time will help the United States maintain and fulfill its position of leadership in today's world? Obviously the increased enrollment in our schools has brought a student population diversified in economic, religious, and social backgrounds, intelligence, and vocational interests. In our concern for educating everybody are we neglecting the few ? Are we sacrificing quality for quantity, and if so does the principle of equality of opportunity justify it? Dr. Conant believes we can solve the problem largely by teaching a diversified high school program extremely well. He pleads for consolidation of high schools so that better instruction, a wider selection of courses, and duplicate sections for different ability levels in various subjects can be provided. Professor Mathewson and Professor Peyre both show how the educational system of a country is indigenous to it, and cannot be transplanted to a foreign soil. All three papers are a vindication of the American comprehensive high school. Dr. Creese points out the close relationship between the library and the laboratory, and the writers on vocational and technical education are interested in showing the interrelationship between industry and technical training. The section on the education of exceptional children explores the meaning of the term gifted and shows how talent includes many other abilities besides intelligence. Dr. Sack explores the democratic ideal of equality and shows how the implementation of this principle requires diversified programs for diversified talents. She pleads for the development of appreciation among students for the varying contributions each can make to American life. Professor Strang and others point out the need for identifying and treating psychological casualties in the elementary school before it is too late to rehabilitate the pupil.

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Editor's Preface

The group in secondary education is concerned with the impact of mass media on education and the placc of the arts in education, while the group in elementary education gives the teaching of the fundamentals close scrutiny. Professor Symonds points out the contribution of psychology to methods of the elementary school teacher and Professor Ojemann deals with the development of self discipline in children. The title of the yearbook, Quality and Quantity in American Education, gives the point of view of the editor and the contributors. The complexity of modern life demands larger numbers of highly trained technical and professional personnel, and at the same time it demands a greater degree of appreciation, understanding, and cooperation among citizens, not only in their daily occupations, but also in social and political action. In the decades ahead we must prepare ourselves not only to live with change but to encourage and direct change. We shall have to develop to a much greater degree than heretofore those characteristics for which Americans are well known— flexibility and adaptability. We must be sure that specialization does not come to a dead end in a one way street, that special training is not divisive of Americans in the fundamental traditions which make us a democratic people. We must develop a high quality of living for all. We must recognize excellence in many fields. We must develop a climate in the school, in industry, in the home, and in the community which encourages excellence wherever it is found. Obviously and, not or, is the correct conjunction in our title. It has been well said that every child has a gift. Our success as a people depends upon our discovering these gifts and providing the means for developing them. The editor wishes to thank all those who have contributed to the preparation of the "Proceedings," especially to the members of his staff and those of the University of Pennsylvania Press. Acknowledgment is hereby gratefully made to authors and publishers who have given permission to quote from their works. FREDERICK C .

Philadelphia November, 1958

GRUBER

Contents Editor's

I.

Preface

General

13

Diversified Schools for Diversified Communities—James Existentialism and the Education of Twentieth Century Cleve Morris

II.

Comparative

The Current Educational

B. Conant

28

Education Situation:

43

Europe and

America—Robert

H. Mathewson A French Professor's Peyre

III.

45 Remarks

on American

Education—Henri 55

Higher Education

Responsibilities

63

of Colleges and Universities for

Training

School

Personnel — John Dale Russell Libraries and Laboratories—James

IV.

65 Creese

81

Administration

89

Recent Court Decisions Affecting Professional Organizations D. Willard Zahn

V.

School Policies—E.

and the Present Scene in

C. Bolmeier

91

Education— 99

Teaching Modern Languages

Foreign Languages in the Elementary Dangers—Kenneth Mildenberger

Schools:

The Teaching of Modern Languages in Secondary

107 Possibilities

and 109

Schools—Adolph

C. Gorr The Achievement

15

Man—Van

114 of the German Novelle—Walter

9

Silz

119

10

Contents

VI.

Vocational Education

139

Changing Skill Patterns of Occupations for which Training is Needed in the Atomic Age—Howard K. Hogan Navy Training Programs—Commander

W. H. Rogers, USN

Changing Objectives in Metallurgical Education—A.

141 149

O. Schaefer

152

Educational Implications of the Demands of the Technological Economy on Industry—John R. Carpenter

154

Demands of the Technological Economy on Industry and Implications for Education—John M. Brophy

158

VII.

The Exceptional

Child

πι

The Unmet Needs of High School Students—L. Kathryn Dice Treatment of Psychological Casualties Among Elementary

173

School

Children—Ruth Strang

183

How much Can We Teach Mentally Deficient Children ?—Mortimer Garrison, Jr. What Foundation for Democracy?—Marion

185 J. Sack

Gifted Pupils in the Elementary School—Ruth

VIII.

190

Strang

195

Secondary Education

Television and the English Teacher—Alexander

205 Shevlin

The English Teacher and Mass-Communication—Marcus

207 Konick

212

The Contribution of Dance in the Education of Children—The Need for Communications and Creative Release for the Individual—Marion Chase

221

The Importance of Fostering Creative Expression in the Secondary Schools—Italo L. de Francesco

226

Geography in the High School—Zoe A. Thralls

241

IX.

Elementary Education

247

What the Elementary School Teacher Has to Learn from Psychology —Percival M. Symonds

249

Controversial Issues in the Teaching of Reading—Albert J. Harris

261

Writing for Young Readers—John Tottle

272

A Modern Approach to Handwriting—Caroline

D. Emerson

284

Contents

11

Putting Spice Into Spelling—Mary Elisabeth Coleman

293

Creating Arithmetic Readiness by Use of Exploratory Materials— Foster E. Grossnickle

301

Reinforcing Learning in the Elementary School Subjects—Percival M. Symonds

312

Social Studies Skills for Children—Dorothy

321

McClure Fraser

Development of Self-Discipline in Children—Ralph H. Ojemann

X. Index

Schoolmen's Week Committees, 1958

345 351 355

I General

Diversißed

Schools for

Diversißed

Communities

J A M E S Β. C O N A N T *

T

my address might be considered a characterization of the unique system of education which has developed in the United States. In no other country, as far as I am aware, could a discussion of tax-supported education be introduced by some such title. And I propose this morning to discuss American public secondary education. I should like to tell you something of the study I have been making during the past year of the public high schools. But, before I report on some of my findings and give you certain of my conclusions as to how American public education can be improved, I should like to explore a little further those features of our system that warrant the use of the word "unique." During my four years in Germany, first as United States High Commissioner and then as Ambassador, I had many opportunities of discussing American education with German friends. I also, on more HE TITLE OF

* Former President of Harvard University, former U.S. High Commissioner Germany, former U.S. Ambassador for the Federal Republic of Germany.

15

for

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than one occasion, endeavoured to explain public education in the United States to a German audience. The task was not easy, as questions from the floor usually demonstrated. Two features particularly puzzled the Germans—the first was the nature of the American college; the second, our system of local control of our public schools. In the Federal Republic of Germany, each one of the twelve states is independent in matters of education; indeed, there is a clause in the Constitution making education strictly a matter for the separate states. Some people complain about the resulting complexity and the differences between the tax-supported schools in the different states which cause trouble when a family moves from one state to another. But when I pointed out that their system was order itself, as compared to ours in which at the high school level more than 20,000 separate school boards have vast powers, the usual question was: "How can such a system ever work?" There have always been some Americans who, like the questioners in the German audiences, doubted if public education could be made satisfactory as long as we held to the doctrine of local control. In the course of the vigorous discussion of public education which increased its tempo after the Russians' success with rockets, these doubters have, from time to time, expressed their views. What they seem to call for is a remodelling of the American system to correspond to the European. What they appear to be arguing for is a more ordered uniform system of education which should insure that our professional men and women receive as adequate an education as their European colleagues. In a sense, I find myself essentially in agreement with the basic objective of these reformers, for I think many of the members of our learned professions are, at present, receiving an unsatisfactory education in school and college. But I think it is both impossible and undesirable to consider giving up local control of our public schools. It is my thesis that American secondary education can be made adequate without changing the basic framework of our system, provided our high schools are of sufficient size. But before attempting to document this proposition, let me say a few words about the European systems in contrast to our own. I shall confine my examination to the educational system in free European countries. (What goes on in the Soviet Zone of Germany and for Satellite nations is an entirely different story.) France is noted

General

17

for the high degree of centralization in education, as in all other matters; Paris is the center from every point of view. In Germany today, the separate states are autonomous, as I have already mentioned; in Switzerland, so are the separate Cantons. One finds differences in the details of the educational picture as one travels in Europe from one school system to another—the terminology where French is spoken is, of course, different from that employed in Germanspeaking lands. But neglecting the fine structure, so to speak, one can describe a common European pattern which, unlike the American pattern, is relatively uniform within a given educational area—France as a whole, a German state, a Swiss Canton. As I indicated in my opening remarks, the idea that different types of communities require somewhat different schools is a notion completely alien to a European. Yet, diversity is the characteristic of the American scene—to my mind, an essential characteristic and one likely to remain essentially unchanged for many years to come. Why the fundamental contrast between Europe and the United States ? At first sight, one is inclined to attribute it to the almost blind American devotion to the idea of local autonomy in all matters, to a basic hostility to centralized government, to local pride, to desire of small groups to run their own affairs. This attitude is characteristically American and completely baffles foreign observers, I may add. I shall consider later how, carried to extremes, it hampers the improvement of secondary education. But taken by itself alone, I think our firm adherence to the idea of local government will not explain the educational situation I am attempting to depict. The diversity I have in mind—the diversity that strikes one at once as he travels around the United States visiting schools, as I have been doing in the past year— is to be found primarily only at the high school level. By and large, the education provided in the lower grades, while it undoubtedly differs in quality from place to place, is relatively uniform, at least within a given state. Not so the organization of the high schools and the problems which the administrators face. For example, in some communities such as a high-income suburb composed almost exclusively of families with collegiate ambitions, one of the major concerns of the principal of a high school and the counseling staff is to find colleges which will admit those youths whose academic ability is far from great and, alas, miles apart from the aspirations of their parents.

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On the other hand, in a small city a considerable distance away from the large metropolitan areas, the reverse problem more frequently arises. In such schools where less than half the graduates desire to go on to college, the alert and conscientious counselors may have to struggle with parents of bright pupils who are not interested in having the child stretch his intellectual muscles, not even interested in having him go on with his education after graduation. The examples I have just given provide the clue to the basic difference between the schools of Europe and the United States. The need for diversified schools arises in this country in connection with the education of youth (ages, roughly, fourteen to eighteen). In Europe, as you know, the vast majority of the population ceases to attend school full time at age fourteen; the continuation schools providing education a few hours a week are for those who are apprenticed in a factory. Only a small fraction of an age group (less than twenty per cent) are engaged in education on a full-time basis beyond age fourteen. These students are enrolled in special schools which prepare for the University and which might be given the over-all title of "preuniversity schools." (They include the French Lycees, the German Gymnasia and Oberrealschulen.) At the age of ten or eleven (or, in a few states, twelve or thirteen), those who are to attend the pre-university schools are selected out of the general elementary school. A generation or two ago, enrollment in these pre-university schools was not without its expense, and, in most areas, the separation was largely on class line. Even today, there are many parts of Europe where family tradition plays a determining role in deciding who tries to enter the pre-university school and who does not. Certain families would hardly think of starting a son towards a university, however bright he might appear. Other families, like those in certain American suburbs, will have the university in mind, and at least wish their offspring to enter a pre-university school. At the age of ten or eleven, a vital decision must be made—first by the parent, then by the school authorities. The standards of selection are usually high and may be based on an examination, or the opinion of the elementary school teachers, or the school record. Children of families with a long professional tradition may be rejected. Complaints are heard, but the system remains unaltered. (In several Swiss Cantons I visited where families with educational ambitions seemed to be

General

19

making trouble for the authorities, careful explanations of the significance of the selection process were given to the parents of the ten-year-olds each year.) Even when the boy or girl has been admitted to the boys' or girls' pre-university school, the selective process is by no means over. A long hard road lies ahead before the completion of the seven-to-nine year course and the passing of the examination that yields a certificate admitting to any university in the country. A half or more of the pupils fail during the course and are dropped f r o m the school; in one C a n t o n I visited in Switzerland, only a third of those who entered finally graduated. Those who succeed have acquired a general education which meets the European standard of what an educated man or woman ought to know—a mastery of two foreign languages, mathematics through calculus, European history, and the literature of the nation. The students are then ready to enter a university. Of course, you realize that the European university is something quite different f r o m the American university. There is no equivalent of the undergraduate college. Only some five to seven per cent of the age group attend a university in Europe which is essentially a group of professional faculties—law, medicine, science, and the humanities. With us, some thirty per cent at least enter a four-year institution. And there are such a variety of such institutions with such a variety of standards for admission and such a variety of programs, that almost any parent can find a college for his son or daughter, however dull may be the offspring. This being so, the parent will demand a type of schooling unknown in Europe where there is a uniform pre-university school and only one type of university. In a European nation, if the boy or girl fails out of the school at age fourteen or over, his or her formal education at state expense is over. Private schools and private tutoring always present one alternative, but an expensive one, of course. It is quite clear that, because the education of the fourteen to eighteen-year-olds is handled so differently in Europe from the United States, it is possible to have a system which is not diversified on a geographic basis. The two problems I mentioned earlier to be found in two types of American schools just do not exist in Europe. The bright boy or girl f r o m a family without educational ambitions never gets into a school where his or her further education is a concern of

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the school authorities; few in Europe worry about potential talent that is lost this way. The ambitious parents of a son with little academic ability usually accept the results of the harsh selective process with few complaints (though I have heard some bitter ones). At all events, since only five per cent or so of an age group enter a university in Europe (and a university is essentially a series of professional schools), the lack of a university education does not, in itself, mean the lack of prestige—certainly not for an established family. But I have spoken too long about Europe. It is clear that in order to import the European system into the United States the following changes would be in order; first, one would have to abolish all the independent liberal arts colleges (over 1,000 rugged institutions), for there is no equivalent of these colleges on the European continent; second, one would have to alter greatly the nature of our universities not only by eliminating the four-year undergraduate college but, in many state universities, giving up many four-year programs in practical fields which the Europeans would characterize as nonacademic; third, one would have to set up a uniform standard for admission to all degree-granting institutions and make admission depend on the passing of examinations in which the candidate proved his or her mastery of two foreign languages as well as advanced mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, and a knowledge of literature ; fourth, the universities would have to establish uniform standards for degrees (there would be no college degrees, of course); fifth, one would have to reverse the trend of thinking about child labor which in the last forty years has resulted in the laws which now govern the employment of youth (these laws would have to be repealed and labor unions and management would have to be persuaded to imitate the European practice in regard to the employment of young people); and finally, one would have to abolish local school boards and place the control of the details of curriculum and the employment of teachers (including their allocation to a specific school) in the hands of the government of each of the forty-eight states. I have no idea which of these six changes would be the most difficult to bring about. And it is a matter of no consequence, for we can be reasonably sure that we shall not attempt to Europeanize our educational pattern, not primarily because it would be so difficult, but because our pattern corresponds to the real needs of the United States.

General

21

It has developed, as a consequence of our history, so different from that of any European state. It flourishes because diverse communities have different needs. Let me analyze the situation a bit further. As a first approximation, one could place the high schools in the United States in the following classes: small high schools with a graduating class of less than one hundred, schools in consolidated rural areas, suburban high schools serving a community where all or almost all of the families wish their children to go to college, suburban schools serving areas in which the collegiate ambitions of the families are less pronounced, high schools in small cities outside of a metropolitan area, schools in the big cities with many, many high schools, each available for children in a given district, vocational high schools to be found in large cities throughout the country and in smaller communities in certain areas, and selective academic high schools to be found in the large Eastern cities. Let me say a few words about the selective academic public school first. These would appear, at first sight, to be the equivalent of the European pre-university school, but they are not for several reasons. The first is the existence of the American liberal arts college which is an intermediate stage in education between the high school and the professional schools of law and medicine. The European pre-university school is somewhat comparable to a four-year high school plus two years of college. We do not expect the general or liberal arts education of our future lawyers and doctors to be completed by the end of school. The European does. The second difference between the European school and the American selective high school is that the selection of students is made at age fourteen or fifteen in the United States instead of ten or eleven; therefore the course is shorter (four years) and the failure rate much less. But the main difference lies in the fact that, for most of the parents in the city in which these schools are located, there are always other tax-supported high schools available which offer much the same educational program and from which many graduates go on to college. In short, in no section of the country is the only tax-supported road to higher education that provided by a highly selective school. The basic difference as compared to Europe is clear. It is an interesting historical fact that, while selective tax-supported schools have a long and honorable history in the cities on the East

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EDUCATION

coast, they have never spread much beyond the Alleghenies. The success of the selective academic public high school in those large cities where it fluroishes is dependent, first, on the traditions of the school, and second, on the fact that, in a large city with many high schools, one can select the very able students for high school education without raising the problems that would arise if this was attempted in a community with a few schools. What those problems would be is illustrated by the situation in many suburban high schools with which I am familiar and to which I have already alluded. Since our colleges are ready to take in such a wide spectrum of academic ability, the high school road to college, in a given school jurisdiction, cannot be restricted to those who fall into a narrow segment—say the top fifteen per cent. Returning to my classification, I should like to say a word or two about the small high school, for, in many states, a drastic reduction in the number of such schools by district reorganization should be the top item on the agenda of school improvement. Unless a high school has a graduating class of one hundred or more, it cannot do a satisfactory job for a diversified student body. For example, there are not likely to be more than fifteen or twenty per cent, in such a school, who can handle trigonometry or a foreign language (at least effectively). With a graduating class of fifty or so, this would mean that classes of less than ten in these subjects would have to be provided. The expense becomes almost prohibitive, not to mention the difficulty of procuring teachers. In that connection, it is interesting to note that if all the states in the Union would do as good a job as has California in district reorganization, the number of high schools could be reduced from 23,000 to some 9,000. What this would mean, in terms of providing adequate teachers of such specialized subjects as advanced mathematics, physics, and foreign languages, needs no underlining. In some states, as many as two-thirds of the high school youth are attending schools that are too small; in California the figure is four per cent; in new Jersey, six per cent; in New York, thirteen per cent; and in Pennsylvania, fourteen per cent. The small high school cannot give a satisfactory education to those who can handle difficult academic subjects (the "academically talented," one may say). Neither can it provide a variety of adequate non-academic elective programs for the others; again, the numbers are

General

23

too few. The general academic program usually required of all students —four years of English, three of history and social studies, 9th grade mathematics and science—may be adequately handled. But developing significant vocational programs for boys and girls is almost impossible in a small school. And, yet, for many communities these programs, I am convinced, are a vital part of the school program. Without them, the pupil with average or less-than-average academic ability merely elects a watered-down academic program—a jumble of courses in which there is little interest—and the only motivation for staying in school is purely social. In comprehensive high schools of sufficient size such as I have seen in many sections of the country, a large fraction of the boys and girls are seriously engaged in a meaningful sequential course of study which develops a skill marketable immediately on graduation. Such "committed" students have an attitude towards their academic work— English and the social studies—that is quite different from that which is encountered in students who are studying without a purpose. In other words, from what I have observed in my visits to some fifty schools in the past year, I am convinced of the importance of those courses often designated "commercial" or "vocational." But no discussion of these offerings can be conducted in general terms, for the nature of the courses must be related to the community (to the parents' prejudices and the employment opportunities in the area). This is why, even among the comprehensive high schools of sufficient size outside of the suburban areas, there must be great diversity in the elective non-academic programs. In short, one could subdivide several of my categories of schools into many subclasses corresponding to the nature of the city, town, or consolidated district being served. In all the diversified schools of sufficient size, however, there will be, almost always, at least fifteen per cent of the student body who can be given instruction to their profit in academic subjects too difficult for the majority to handle effectively and rewardingly. I say "can be given instruction" advisedly. I used the word " c a n " rather than "could" to indicate that I have been in schools where this group of academically talented pupils were studying a stiff program of academic subjects. In four years, almost all of the academically talented (about 15 per cent of the school) had studied four years of English, three years of social studies, four years of mathematics,

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three years of science, four years of foreign language—a total of eighteen subjects with homework. This is a demanding program, requiring fifteen or more hours of homework a week every school week for four years. Yet, I believe this and, perhaps, more should be the high school program not of all the pupils, mind you, but of the top fifteen per cent. Now you may or may not agree with the details of my prescription for the high school education of the academically talented, but I suggest it would be well for each school board to have an inventory of the graduating high school class to see what, in fact, the academically talented students have been studying. The board might ask the principal to draw up a list of the fifteen per cent of the pupils who scored highest on some standard test or tests of mathematical and linguistic ability in the 8th grade, and then put together the programs of study of these pupils for the next four years. Then have the principal do a simple calculation in order to summarize the results for presentation to the school board and eventually to the public. (The names of the individual students would, of course, not be given.) The results would then show what percentage of this group (the academically talented) had elected mathematics, science, and foreign languages. If the board believed, as I do, that the programs of the able students ought to be of the sort I have just outlined, and in fact they were not for a considerable fraction, then the situation deserves an investigation. Either the counselors were not persuasive enough, or had given poor advice, or the parents were too resistant. If the former, the principal could correct the matter; if the latter, the community might be aroused and made to realize that parents with able offspring ought, in the national interest, to see to it that their children followed the counselors' advice. At this point, I should like to say a word or two about the importance of the work of the counselors. To my mind, there should be one fulltime counselor for every 300 pupils. The counseling, or guidance service should start in the lower grades, but it is during the high school years that the role of the counselor assumes particular significance. The counselor's task is to supplement the advice given by parents, not to supplant it. There seems to be some misunderstanding on this point among laymen, and I have even run into hostility to the whole idea of guidance. Of course, if there were a uniform required curriculum the same for all students in a high school, the need for counselors would

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almost disappear—certainly there would be no guidance to be done. But, as I have already indicated, the comprehensive high school must offer a variety of elective programs in addition to the academic programs required of all (four years of English, three or four years of social studies, two years of mathematics and science). The high school student has to make decisions about courses that are often not easy. Help is needed. The nature of the help will depend often on the family's ambitions quite as much as on the child's own interests or abilities. In some schools I have been in, the chief problem with parents was to persuade those who had bright children that the boy or girl in question ought to elect advanced academic subjects and go on to college. The family tradition and the desire to earn money immediately on graduation might work in the opposite direction. And undoubtedly in some localities, a considerable fraction of the academically talented youth do not pursue their education beyond high school. In other communities, the counselor may be faced with the exactly opposite problem. Many families with children who are not good students have collegiate ambitions that by no means coincide with the realities. The counselor may have to slowly persuade the parents not to drive their children into courses too difficult for them to handle and to give up attempts to get them into certain types of institutions of higher learning. But I have said enough to indicate the importance of the counselor in high schools of diverse types. Let me return to my idea of getting the facts about what the academically talented youth actually study in a given school. This idea developed from my experiences in visiting comprehensive schools which had a reputation of doing a good job for all types of pupils. Our observations in a one-day visit usually led us to the tentative conclusion that the good reputation was well founded. It appeared that those subjects required of all, namely, English and the social studies, were, by and large, in the hands of capable teachers. The vocational programs were well planned with regard to the local situation. Therefore, in terms of general and vocational education, the schools appeared to be satisfactory. But how about the education of the academically talented ? The talks with the students and the teachers left us with the impression that the science and mathematics courses were well taught. But were the really topflight students taking them ? This is the question to which the academic

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inventory gives an approximate answer, and we asked twenty schools to provide the information from which we could prepare academic inventories of the class which graduated in 1957. It would take far too long to attempt to give you the results, for we found a great variety of situations. (Those of you who are interested can read them in my report when it is published.) In some schools, as I have already indicated, all or almost all the academically talented were studying what I believe to be a full program. In others, the situation was far otherwise. Particularly, the girls seemed to shy away from the physics and 12th grade mathematics courses, and, in school after school, the offering in foreign languages was quite inadequate—only two years were available. Two years' study of a foreign language, if not continued, is very close to a waste of time. But, in school after school, it was clear that, if four years had been offered, many of the bright students would have elected this sequence. And if they had, their programs would have corresponded to the specifications I gave a few minutes ago. Our sampling of schools made no attempt to provide what might be called a "significant random sample." Quite the contrary; I was anxious to visit schools with good reputations to see whether any comprehensive high schools existed for which three questions could be answered in the affirmative. These questions are: Is it possible for a comprehensive high school to provide stimulating and sound instruction for the able boy or girl if these pupils are in a minority in the school and the majority of the pupils have no wish to proceed to a college or university? C a n such a school provide a sound education for the bright pupils, a satisfactory vocational education for the others, and an understanding of democracy among all its graduates? This last objective by the way—the development of an understanding of democracy—seems to have been forgotten by most of the critics of the public schools who have spoken in the last year. Yet, to anyone who has pondered on the extinction of democracy by the Nazis in a highly educated nation, the objective must loom large. We would do well to recall, at this time of excitement about applied scientists, that attitudes developed in the schools determine to a considerable degree the nature of the society a few years later. But to return to my three questions. The results of my study show that there are schools about which these questions can be answered

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with a " y e s . " I k n o w there are others where, with relatively few changes, a " n o " to one of the questions (the education of the a c a d e m ically talented) could be converted to a "yes." Therefore, I conclude that, t h r o u g h a drastic reduction in the number of small high schools and the i m p r o v e m e n t of those now of sufficient size, there is no reason why public secondary education in the United States could not be made satisfactory. It could be made satisfactory even f r o m the point of view of those who are primarily concerned with the education of that small g r o u p — s o m e fifteen per cent—from whom will come the f u t u r e leaders of the learned professions. All this could be accomplished, I believe, without any change in the basic pattern of local control. Diversified schools would still be serving diversified communities, but they would be doing so in such a way as to develop to the m a x i m u m the potentialities of the oncoming generation. All this is possible, provided the citizens want it and will work for it. That there is d e e p interest in the problems is evident from today's meeting. The following question arises in each state and each locality: "Will this interest be translated into effective a c t i o n ? " I believe it will be, and, for that reason, I a m h o p e f u l about the future of American public education.

Existentialism

and the Education

oj Twentieth Century Man VAN CLEVE MORRIS*

ι subject this afternoon a perhaps somewhat unorthodox topic, especially for these hectic times. While the admirals and the history professors are jumping up and down about the evil, perhaps even seditious, transgressions of the educationists, and while the public press blames the public school for our humiliating defeat in the skies (while making sure not to mention anything about the schools and our epic submarine voyage under the north pole)—while all this torrent of criticism swirls about our heads, here sits a quiet group of intellectuals, daring to turn from the public clamor of the moment, to consider from a quite unexpected sector, a view of life which seems altogether removed from the world of Sputniks, submarines, and rockets to the moon. I suppose this is all very fitting, really, for I take it to be the privilege—if not the actual badge—of the egghead to open up new contro-

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* Associate Professor of Education, Co-ordinator of Teacher Education, College, Rutgers University.

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versial territory even while battles rage to occupy and carve up the old. You might say this is his utilitarian function in society: to awaken our minds to new questions even while we are deeply troubled by older questions still unanswered. This proclaimed duty—what we might call the "gadfly syndrome"—shall, I hope, be noticeable this afternoon. Of course, as you will all become aware in due time, I shall for the most part be employing the ideas of others, but I hope to do this in such a way as to open up new considerations in this business of educating the young. I shall attempt this by examining one of our most cherished human institutions—the school—from the viewpoint of Existentialism, a subject on which Existentialists have had up to now very little to say. Existentialism, of course, enjoys a rather precarious reputation in America today. Many people, even intellectuals who should know better, have the vague feeling that it is a kind of mystical and somewhat illicit poetry that is concocted in an apparently nihilist atmosphere on the Parisian Left Bank by intense characters who wear little beards. Or perhaps, as Life Magazine seems to make it out, it is a form of lower-class classlessness that appears to be a kind of morally negativistic "country club," what you might call a super-Bohemian offshoot of the Greenwich Village variety of institutionalized Bohemianism, made up of individuals who are avant-avant-garde, wear dirty T-shirts, live in San Francisco, make a studied effort to look "beat," and get written about by Jack Kerouac. I don't know as it matters too much whether these people are or are not Existentialists. What quite obviously does matter, however, is that we give sober and thoughtful attention to the authentic message of Existentialism and what this message has to say about the management of the educative process. To achieve the necessary sobriety, I suggest we turn our eyes from these spectacular, semi-licit images the public mind has developed concerning this outlook, and address ourselves directly to the central position of Existentialist thinkers. II What does Existentialism say? It may come as a surprise to you that it is not so complicated and esoteric as many people seem to try to make it. The focal problem resides within every one of us and it is relatively simple to describe. Every human being—every one in this

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room—lives out his every day with a monstrous paradox he cannot resolve. In the first place, you must take the position that you are the most important being in the world. There is no other possible platform from which to view life. You are the center of everything, the final measuring rod for all that you experience. And you must always place a higher valuation on your continuing existence than that of all you survey. If there is a direct showdown between you and a hurricane, you and a wild beast, you and an arrant gunman, your vote must always be cast for yourself. I know, of course, that in examples of extreme heroism, we learn of individuals sacrificing their lives for others; but this is just my point. It is because such acts of self-destruction are so unusual, so absolutely contrary to everything we feel within ourselves, that we call them heroic. Certainly the most awful, traumatic personal catastrophe we can imagine is to be placed in a circumstance where we must choose our own obliteration. We therefore assign to our own selves—without any help from Christian doctrine or democratic preachments about the worth of the individual —we assign to our own selves, I say, an absolute value and an ultimate worth. On the other hand, each of us knows that, when you come right down to it, we count for absolutely nothing. It is a little disturbing, I'll grant, but it happens to be so. The universe does not require our perpetual existence—our mortality proves it. Nor does the cosmos take any kind of stand, pro or con, on the longevity of our existence— the hazard of natural accident and the healing of time, even in the human community, prove this. If I had sailed to my end into Newark Bay aboard that train the other day, 1 you might have had to get another speaker for this session, but aside from a few tears in the family, and a reassignment of my duties at Rutgers, the consequence of my departure would have been absolutely zero. If, on your way home, you should fall into a ditch and drown, small, concentric circles of sorrow might extend outward to your family and friends, but they would all soon be extinguished in the ocean of reality. The cosmos, in the idiom of our time, "couldn't care less." You and I are almost literally but drops in the ontological bucket. Whether we like it or not, we are metaphysically worth precisely nothing. This, to the Existentialist, is the central predicament of human 1

A commuter train plunged through an open bridge with many casualties.

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existence, the contradiction of absolute worth and absolute worthlessness in our being. And it is this predicament which prompts such ugly language in Existentialist writings as "anguish," "despair," "homelessness," and "nausea." For any thoughtful person, if he does not turn away from this predicament, cannot experience anything else. It is true that we have invented all sorts of palliatives for this malaise. The classical humanists invented a set of Platonic Ideas to whose understanding man was in a sense privy. Human exclusiveness in the Rationalists' Club gave us a feeling of rank in the natural order. The Medievalists—and, of course, others throughout human time—gave us religions, and Gods, and transcendental love to convince us that we really counted for something. And modern man has found that society—other people—can in a secular kind of way, provide the support for an existence that continuously borders on the impossible. Worth, dignity, value, really counting as a self, are all now to be found, if one wants to, in the social collective. The appeal to other people—the modern approach—turns out to be far more powerful than most of us suppose. David Riesman, sociologist now with Harvard, has as most of you know added a new word and concept to our language, "otherdirectedness." His analysis and documentation of this new character trait in America in The Lonely Crowd was masterful and convincing. But there now come along more detailed findings to document the awful power of these "others." For instance, Elaine Bell, a psychologist, has found a decided preference for "groupy" as against "individualist" hobbies, careers, and life objectives in a group of high school and college students. 1 In commenting on this, Riesman has said: . . . I think we can see that Americans (want to be and) are friendly not only because we feel we have to be to get along but also because we are brought up to value friendliness for its o w n sake, to regard it not only as a lubricant of organization but as a consumable in its o w n right. More than m o s t people, we want to like p e o p l e and to be liked. M o v i n g as we do against an everchanging natural and urban landscape, we are very conscious of the p e o p l e w h o fill the social space around us. Their response helps locate us in an otherwise bewildering cosmos. We smile, not only to show our Ipanascrubbed teeth, but to disarm the stranger and convert him into a friend.' 1 Reported in D. Riesman, "Psychological Types and National Character," American Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4, Winter 1953, pp. 340-341. 4 Ibid., p. 334.

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At Purdue University, Prof. Η. H. Remmers has been studying adolescents for seventeen years. His most recent work indicates that high school youngsters almost always take a look to see what others think before saying or doing anything. Questioned concerning their problems and desires, these youngsters gave as their largest response: "Want people to like me more." In a kind of scholarly despair, Remmers concludes: As a nation we seem to have a syndrome characterized by atrophy of the will, hypertrophy of the ego and dystrophy of the intellectual muscalature.1 Perhaps the most grotesque, Frankensteinish psychological experiment was conducted at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard University. In this study it was found possible to induce a subject to tell downright lies in order to find acceptance in a group. As the reporter of this fascinating study summed it up: That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct.* It is plain to see that, in our own time, we look to other people to provide the sustenance we all need to be certain that we count for something in this life. But the point is, getting back to our problem, that, while we have historically concocted various nostrums for our "sickness unto death," we have not in any way treated the disease; we have only relieved the symptoms, relieved them with psychological analgesics. And the hilarious irony of it all is that as we find our sense of worth in a transcendent truth, or a God's love, or today in social togetherness, we mistake the consequent glow we get for real health. Like the dope addict who relies on a daily dose of heroin, we get the same boot from a daily dose of other people. In this special kind of euphoria, we say with the addict, "we're really livin'!" Of course, this is not really "livin' " at all; it is just the opposite— to be only partially alive. It is to choose a kind of numbness which will make the pain of the predicament go away. It is to choose fogginess in * Η . H. Remmers and D. H. Radier, "Teenage Attitudes," Scientific American, Vol. 198, N o . 6, June 1958, p. 26. 2 Solomon E. Asch, "Opinions and Social Pressure," Scientific American, Vol. 193, No. 5, November, 1955, p. 34.

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judgment and dullness in sensation—quite like we often do in our use of alcohol—to make the world temporarily more tolerable than it seems to be. But we cannot say we are really alive when we are drunk; we are only partly so, for while we have subtracted from sensation, we have also paralyzed the will. And so neither can we say we are really alive when we require daily dosages of "other people" to keep our psychic spirits up, f o r this is only a symptom of paralysis of the self. The condition of modern man, then, in truth, is to be likened to a kind of somnambulant torpor in which he envisions himself as something very remarkable precisely because he has merely rendered the cosmos less exciting—and hence more manageable—that it really is. It is for this reason that modern man is not easily convinced that he is sick. He strides about his globe in scientific splendor, matter in one hand, energy in the other, proclaiming his conquest of the elements. But once back home from the campaign, he hasn't the faintest idea of what to do with all his technological plunder. He is lost under a pile of his own war medals. N o w what does all this imagery really mean? T o the Existentialist it means simply that the paradox cannot be solved in this way, that to pass from paradox to palliative, to relieve our psychic pain with artificial narcotics, is to pass from aliveness to numbness in this exciting adventure called human life. It means that once we recognize the nature of our predicament, once we see that the full exercise of the spontaneous human self is the avenue to authenticity as a person, and what is more, once we discover we are really up to it, we will forget about palliatives and pain killers and return to the place where we belong—the stadium of human choice where men can establish their sense of worth, where they can pronounce their value to the cosmos through the very lives they choose to lead. It is something of a shock to realize that one has a human life all of his own, that he can render this life and its works unto any god he chooses, that he can lay it upon the altar of any value he selects. None of us is quite prepared for this recognition; it is, so to speak, too much for us. The ones who come closest to understanding what this means are perhaps the Zen Buddhists. In Zen (which comes from the Japanese word meaning to sit and meditate) there is a primary attention to the nature of the human will. If you reflect for a moment on the fact of one human life completely within your charge, you will recognize the Q.Q.A.E.-B

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enormous region of decision open to you to make this life say to the cosmos what you want it to say. The totality of your will is so complete that it can even end this life, truncating the message this life is delivering to the cosmos. Thus, the will has domain over everything—except one thing: its origin. To put it more simply, the willing self had no jurisdiction over its own creation. It just found itself in existence. And when the self awakens to this, awakens to the recognition that it is now responsible for a life for which it was not initially responsible, we can see the emergence of the self-same predicament of the Existentialists. For this is what the Existentialists mean by the priority of existence, indeed why they call themselves Existentialists. The customary view— both in popular language and in classical philosophy—is that the Idea or essence of Man preceded the creation or existence of Man, in quite the same way that the idea of a Cadillac emerges in the designer's mind before the factory hands put one together. The popular concepion of God is that of the Supreme Designer or Idea Man. The Existentialists turn this around to say that Cadillacs may happen this way, but not Man. Man arrived without a plan. He awakened to his existence and is now forced, by virtue of his will, to shape his own design. In short, man wakes up to find himself here; he then sets about the task of declaring his own nature, in establishing the Idea of Man. Hence, existence comes before essence. I do not think this idea is altogether ridiculous. It is re-enacted in a microcosmic way by every one of us in our own lives. We grow up from infancy into childhood quite oblivious of our own selves. We eat, we sleep, we play, we learn; but we are really not in charge of our own lives. This is because we are not really aware that we exist. Then some time around puberty, there comes a moment—what I shall call the "Existential Moment" —when suddenly we clasp ourselves and exclaim, "It's me, me! I'm a person. I'm here!" We may possibly regress at times, especially when under punitive treatment by our parents, to the view that "Well, I didn't ask to be born!" Which of course is quite right. But it is no longer relevant; it is perhaps the most ridiculous irrelevancy a person can utter. For the fact of the matter is that whether you asked to be born or not, here you are, present in the world, committed to responsibility for your own life. In commenting on this exciting moment in life, D. T. Suzuki, Zen's

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chief exponent in English, quotes Confucius: " A t fifteen my mind was directed to study, and at thirty I knew where to stand." 1 Suzuki then goes on to say: This is one of the wisest sayings of the Chinese sage. Psychologists will agree to this statement of his; for, generally speaking, fifteen is about the age youth begins to look around seriously and inquire into the meaning of life.» Thus, in both Zen and Existentialism there is an absolute inevitability about the human predicament. We are placed, whether we like it or not, into a circumstance of choice and responsibility. Even were we to choose not to choose, this would still be a choice, still a signal to indicate what we wished our life to say in our behalf. And what is more, there would be no escaping our responsibility for choosing not to choose. There is no escape back to moral infancy once you have passed the Existential Moment. Ill The world that opens out to us after we pass this critical point is a baffling and difficult place to inhabit. Tillich speaks of it as essentially an "encounter with meaninglessness." He does so not with any sign of deprecation or despair, for we must always remember that a world of meaninglessness, that is, a world that does not have meaning already woven into and embedded in it, is a world which, in a manner of speaking, is " o n our side." That is, it presents possibilities without exacting the reciprocal tribute of human compliance. If there is no a priori meaning to it—and this is the way Existentialism looks at the world—then we can creatively assign meaning to it. We are on, that is, our own. And it is not too early to suggest that boys and girls, as they grow up and go to school, might better be inducted into this kind of open-ended world than into the ready-built, card-house worlds our traditional educational programs would have them know. For the open-ended world, the world of all possibilities and no compliances (except what we impose upon ourselves) is the most exciting kind of world one can hope to live in. It is difficult, to be sure, 1

Quoted in D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism, Wm. Barrett, ed., Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956, p. 4. 2 Loc. cit.

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and the challenges it presents may daunt the more flimsy and fragile among us, leading to the malaise of anguish, homesickness, and nausea of which we have spoken. But this is not so much a rebuke of the world as it is a critique of the half-men who populate the earth and require all kinds of protection from the metaphysical elements. They are huddling together in their air-conditioned huts—their enclosed orthodoxies and their insulated societies—where all is relatively peaceful and serene, convincing each other of their essential preciousness as human beings in the total scheme of things. These people are, of course, entitled to their own air-conditioning; but they cannot claim full human stature, in Existentialist terms, until they realize that the world, the real world of men, is outside in the cold and heat of brute circumstance. Albert Camus has written vividly of this world, of the strangeness of it, of the sense of rebellion we feel at attempts to screen it out and filter it down to make it less strange and less real. As one of his commentators has so aptly said, "The work of Albert Camus is of the kind that requires us to be worthy of it." 1 To be worthy of an author is to be worthy of the kind of existence he describes. It is to be worthy of the role that human beings have been cast in, the role of ultimate moral choice. I think, in a way, that, for all their selfconscious rebellion, the so-called San Francisco Group are testing to see if they are worthy of this kind of world. They have chosen to move out of the air-conditioned moral system of uppermiddle-class America, where split-levels, station wagons, and togetherness have become indiscriminate badges of the amorphous elite. They have ripped to shreds, voluntarily, their protective canopy of orthodox values: working for a living, striving to get ahead, purchasing amusement in prepared packages on television and at the drive-in. They have instead nihilistically turned away from this and struck out on their own, in some kind of unpiloted search for meaning in modern life. What they will find no one can know. But they are quite certainly living a fuller kind of life than you or I as we plod through day after day making only those motions and uttering only those thoughts which have been thoroughly roadtested for acceptability. I do not 1

Albert Maquet, Albert Camus: The Invincible Summer, tr. fr. Fr. by H. Briffault, N e w York: G. Braziller Inc., 1958, p. vii.

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mean to say that their life is necessarily any higher, only that it is fuller in the sense of involvement in moral choice. There is nothing essentially superior about being an odd-ball. Professional odd-balls—what I have referred to elsewhere as "card-carrying Bohemians"—have no more Existentialist rank than anyone else. But whoever involves himself in problems of moral judgment, whoever deliberately inserts himself into situations requiring h u m a n decision, he is the one for whom the Existentialist will hold a place in whatever might be an Existentialist's heaven. This is so for the simple reason that an individual cannot be expected to take charge of his own life, to fashion in the living of his life, a statement of w hat he thinks his life is all about, if he refuses to involve himself in moral decision. There is no more chance for him to do this than there is for Mickey Mantle to hit 61 home runs next year by sitting out every other game to keep his strikeout total down. If we mean to assert our humanity, it can only be done in the thick of the human predicament, not in some comfortable isolation booth of social convention. And it is precisely because modern m a n has chosen the isolation booth, in preference to the bracing but admittedly difficult moral weather outside, that Existentialism becomes so relevant today. The paradox of the h u m a n self, if confronted seriously, no doubt stirs up every metaphysical anguish imaginable; but one thing is certain—it cannot be resolved lying down. The only proper posture to assume in the face of this paradox is to live our lives as if what we do shall be added up somewhere as our contribution to the definition of Man. We need assume neither that we count for everything nor that we count for nothing in this world; the only imperative is that we recognize that what we do count for will be determined by what we "say" with our own individual lives. And to do this, we must accept total involvement in the moral situation of man, total entanglement in the net of choice which is the only world the self can truly inhabit. IV Now what, you may ask, can all of this bizarre language have to d o with educating boys and girls; what, to be specific, would an Existentialist program of education be like? To answer this question, we must go directly to the root meaning of education in modern, civilized society. We are told on good authority that the school is above all a

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social institution, that its principal function in modern life is to recreate in each individual the beliefs, outlooks, behaviors, and preferences of the society which it serves. To do this effectively and efficiently we in America have insisted that all of our youngsters participate in this activity. To assert that we have socialized the educational process in this country is to utter the most fatuous of understatements; we have taken John Dewey at his word and turned education into the crowning symbol of corporate group life. Now this is all very good and there is nothing particularly pernicious or monstrous about it. But it does tend to blur the image we have of the developing individual. The school is not just a social institution; it is also an individual institution. Indeed it is somewhat of an irony, pointed out some years ago by Professor Boyd Bode, that while socalled progressive education pretended to give so much new prominence to the individual in its educational doctrine, it wound up by burying him in group dynamics in the socialized learning process. We are now called upon to extricate the poor fellow from the crushing overload of social controls that he takes on in school and to find again that the school is a school for individual selves quite as much as it is a school for social integration. What this means is simply that the school must direct its attention to the release of the human self, to the involvement of the child in personal decision and moral judgment to a far greater degree than he knows at present. He is too tangled up in group controls, as the Harvard experiment vividly shows, to learn much about what and who he is. He is too enmeshed in peer-group response to discover that he is there himself as one of the peers. It comes as a mild surprise to many adults, I suppose, to discover that they are actually present in the world responding to other people and, through their multitude of responses, actually legislating values day by day. The tragedy is that this hardly ever dawns on adolescents, and they go their adolescent way thinking they have to be the way they are. We thought when we secularized the school that we had driven orthodoxy and narrowness out of the educational process. The great historical joke, however, is that while we have successfully driven sectarian, religious orthodoxies out of the school we have simultaneously driven the school into the waiting arms of another kind of orthodoxy, the tyranny of middle class society. The task now is to

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perform another bit of social surgery to separate at least a part of the youngster's school life from the moral tyranny of the community. To take a concrete example, consider the matter of privacy and quiet reflection. How much opportunity is there in a typical school in America for a youngster to sit still and quiet and go over the personal choices he must make that day? I venture to say that it would be difficult to locate a minute and a half in a typical schoolboy's day for this kind of activity. We have elevated gregariousness to the status of a moral value in American life. It is now suspicious behavior to declare that one wants to be alone. Privacy has declined both as a behavior trait and as a worthwhile thing in our lives; it is a new and embarrassed form of immorality to separate one's self f r o m other people, to reflect quietly on what one is doing, to locate where one is in the rolling ocean of social experience. The great doctrine of "shared experience," so novel and erudite when John Dewey first announced it, has flooded down over the social landscape as if it were a moral law, and it has flushed us all out into the public open where we can n o longer call our private selves our own. This, to the Existentialist, is the tragedy of modern Western life, and the super-tragedy is that American public education is presently designed to aggravate instead of rectify this sorry predicament. The first task, then, of any Existentialist program would be to provide for more private experience for the child while he learns in school. It is noteworthy, it seems to me, that there are tell-tale signs of this in the field of art. 1 In this portion of the school program, at both the elementary and secondary levels, there is a real and genuine interest in allowing the individual youngster to look at his world and to say with his hands what he sees, without prior compliance with so-called artistic laws of form, balance, and line. It is altogether possible that Existentialism will establish its first beachhead in education in the field of the arts. But the provision of private experience in the program of the school is not all, simply because it is not enough. What one does with his privacy, what content he puts into his reflection is the vital statistic of learning. And the Existentialist educator is necessarily interested in having the youngster fill his quiet moments not with the intellectual 1

See V. C. Morris and I. L. de Francesco, "Modern Art and the Modern School," The Clearing House, Vol. 32, No. 2, October, 1957, pp. 67-71.

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factualisms of mathematics or physics, nor even with the normative interpretations in history and the social sciences, but rather with the personal judgments he must m a k e concerning his own life. T h a t is to say, his reflections should contain the subject matter of moral choice. If the sciences wish to fill the mind with information and if the Experimentalists wish to develop trained intelligence through the solving of problems, certainly there should be a little time in the school day for awakening the moral powers of young people to get them to ask who they are a n d what they are doing around here. This might be done, I think, in a number of ways. Y o u will recall my reference to the so-called Existential M o m e n t in each of our lives. I must assume that you know what I am talking about, that this m o m e n t has occurred in your life as it most certainly did in mine, and that it occurs somehow in every h u m a n life sometime in the teens. T h a t this m o m e n t comes after we have been going to school for six or eight years is a fact of enormous significance, it seems to me, for elementary education. During these half dozen years we d o not, I say, know who we are; we d o not even know that we are. We are not yet existentially awake. But once we come awake, perhaps around the sixth or seventh grade, the elementary school, it seems to me, should seize upon every opportunity to present moral problems to the youngster—at the level of his understanding—to provide small beginnings for the long, slow climb to moral maturity. Preferably these problems should be the kind that have no answer, such as " W h a t would you d o if you knew everything?" or "Is it ever right to kill a man ?" At the very least they should open u p the moral sphere to youngsters to introduce them to the most difficult sector of the world they inhabit. An acquaintance of mine recently tried some "philosophy" in his sixth grade in a New York suburb. Questions of God, truth, love, selfhood all got a good going over. The kids loved it and clamored for more which convinces me that there is a genuine appetite for moral problems in the growing child. Somewhat later in his schooling, a youngster should be given a more systematic exposure to the ethical questions of life. Perhaps he might be asked to imagine himself in complete charge of another individual, capable of making him do anything, experience anything, desire anything, know anything. What, for the assignment, would be his plan of life for this individual ? Then when this assignment was

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complete, the teacher could ask the student to compare this program with what plans he has for himself. From this point forward, into college and beyond, the individual should be constantly provoked to expand upon this plan for his developing self, checking here, amending there, but always mindful of the control he has over his own single life, the precious offering he is to contribute to the developing idea of Man. We should all, I suppose, wish that we had more than one life to work o n ; there are so many mistakes. But one is all we are allotted. N a t h a n Hale, if he had been a little more metaphysical with his heroism, might just as well have said "I regret 1 have but one life to give to M a n . " I should suppose from all this that the school in the Existentialist frame would become a more metaphysical kind of place than it is at present. This should not frighten you. I am only suggesting that the ultimate questions of life and destiny should have some place in the educative program along with all the penultimate and lower-order questions which currently claim the student's entire attention. In this connection, it may be possible to reintroduce religion into the school in the form in which it rightly belongs for the consumption of young people, i.e., in the form of recognizing the religious need rather than learning all of the answers, dogmatic and otherwise, that sects and religions and cults have given to this need. Ralph Harper, in discussing Existentialism and education, provides a very able insight into this problem: The religious need is not necessarily a need to which there is a religious answer. It is simply the human need of ultimate recognition. The individual who knows he must die, who suffers, who does not measure up to his own ideal, who cannot find the home and the over-all meaning that his being requires, wants above everything, some evidence that at least his need is recognized by others as the most important thing about him. He wants the universe itself to give some evidence, if possible, that it, too, recognizes this need as legitimate and appeasable. But there is no logical necessity which says that if there is a need for the universe to recognize and appease, the universe will oblige. 1 Here to my way of thinking, is the ideal scripture lesson for all 1

"Significance of Existence and Recognition for Education," Modern Philosophies and Education, p. 245. The fifty-fourth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, Ν. B. Henry, ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955.

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Existentialist teaching in the school. If we could somehow simply awaken boys and girls to the "need for ultimate recognition," to the idea that the universe does not respond obligingly to this need, and that when all is said and done we ourselves are the authors of the response this need must have through our own lives and works, then 1 say we should be on our way to a newer and, I think, higher kind of meaning in the education of the young.

II Comparative Education

Comparative ROBERT

H.

Education MATHEWSON*

AT A TIME when some of our citizens, and educators, are urging us to Z v c o p y European systems of education it is very interesting to note that at least two such systems are engaged in seeking alterations of their patterns in liberal directions, directions that may well move them, in some respects, closer to the structure, if not the content and method, of American education. During the past year, from June 1957 to July 1958,1 had the privilege of observing and studying the British and Dutch schools and of talking with officials and teachers in both systems of education. Some of those I conferred with in Holland had been in the United States under Fulbright and other grants. I would say to them: " S o m e of our people are declaring that we should imitate your system. You have been in our schools; what do you t h i n k ? " As one man, they exclaimed: " F o r Heaven's sake, don't d o it? D o n ' t take over what we are trying to correct!" Knowing American schools f r o m first-hand observation and experience, they did not think that the way out of our own troubles was * Professor of Education, tion, New York City.

Division of Teacher Education,

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Educa-

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to take on some of theirs. A principal of a Haarlem high school who had been in this country told me: "If we could take the best of your system and you could take the best of our system, the combination would make an ideal program of education." Curriculum of a Dutch High School One day I visited a co-educational Gymnasium in one of the largest and most progressive cities in Holland. It was a well-run school, one of the best high schools in the city. Eighteen subjects, practically all of them required, were offered six days a week for six years. Subjects included Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Dutch, History, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The students spent 40 per cent of their time in the remote past—with Latin, Greek and Ancient History. If any student failed two courses in any year, he (or she) had to repeat, not only those two courses, but the entire year's study. In spite of the high level of scholastic aptitude prevailing in the school, repetition of a year of study before graduation was not uncommon. About two-thirds of entering pupils graduate, I was told. There are two other main types of high schools in Holland with less emphasis on the classics and more emphasis on modern languages and the physical and social sciences. But all of them are more or less governed by university preparation requirements. Only twelve per cent of Dutch boys and girls are enrolled in these secondary schools while thirty per cent are in extended elementary education and somewhat less than sixty per cent in vocational and technical education. Asked about the problems of their own schools, some Dutch educators may reply: Our preparatory schools are overloaded with subject matter. We are too information-oriented. Insufficient attention is given to individual need and interest. There is a lack of cooperation for common aims between school levels and even between teachers in the same school. New Secondary School System Proposed As a result of considerable agitation for change, a committee of the Ministry of Education has prepared a set of proposals which, if

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adopted, will represent something of a liberal revolution in Dutch education on the secondary level. I have here a copy of the committee's report, dated January 1958. Let me indicate, very briefly, some of its main features. Perhaps most striking of all are the Committee's declarations: that the "task of continuing education is the development of the personality as well as cultural and social education" that the "school must take into account the individual pupil as well as social demands" that "a flexible transition from primary to continued education is desirable, including the possibility of differentiation within the same school, the possibility of changing schools, and passing on from one school to another." The report of the Committee proposes nothing less than a reorganization of the secondary school system to make it less rigid, more unified and more capable of meeting individual and social needs. As the system is now, parents and youngsters of twelve years of age, are virtually forced without sufficient information to make choices of school tracks on the secondary level that may, and probably in many cases do, determine the entire future of the child. Being very much against premature specialization and seeking to avoid the terrific tension now aroused in parents and pupils confronted with choices of various secondary school programs, the Committee has recommended, as one important feature of its report, a so-called "bridge year" which will constitute the first year of a sixyear span of secondary education. The curriculum in this "bridge year" will be the same for all pupils seeking further educational opportunity. The principal objectives of this preliminary or vestibule year will be to bridge over the now abrupt transition between primary and secondary education, to help students in the determination of their future educational plans and to lay a firm foundation for further instruction. During this year of common curriculum the student may formulate a more carefully based decision as to which of three main types of secondary education he will follow in subsequent years: (1) a program of study leading to the university, (2) a program leading to higher professional-technical work of a nonuniversity nature, or (3) a third course of study representing preparation for intermediate technical occupations.

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This proposed "bridge year" in Holland resembles our junior high school system in some respects and it seemed to me to provide a wonderful opportunity for the exercise of professional guidance work. At the present time, however, Holland does not have the outlook, policy, nor trained professional personnel to provide school guidance and counselling as we understand it. The Committee is explicit in its declaration that it wants the needs of the individual pupil taken into account, as well as social demands. Although it mentions a " c o r e " supplemented by "elective" subjects, it is not too keen about students electing too many optional subjects. Offerings are restricted in this respect, the committee feeling that choices among main types of secondary schooling, then a m o n g the main tracks within each of these types, offers plenty of leeway for individual idiosyncrasy. One aim of the Committee is to do away with the competition and rivalry among the three existing types of high schools now preparing pupils for university education. "It is intended," the report says, "that the pupils shall be able to choose from a number of programs, which shall include optional as well as required subjects." For pre-university education, four programs are proposed which in part resemble the present ones: I. Required subjects: Dutch, Latin, Greek and three modern foreign languages. II. Required subjects: Dutch, Latin (Greek optional), three modern languages, mathematics and physics. III. Required subjects: Dutch, three modern languages, mathematics and physics. IV. Required subjects: Dutch, three modern languages, socialeconomic subjects and mathematics. There has been agitation in Holland for comprehensive high schools somewhat on the English model and it may very well be that, in some of the newer communities being organized on the outskirts of large cities and in the new lands being won from the sea in The Netherlands, such schools will be attempted. The Committee says something about Comprehensive Schools as follows: "It is desirable to make it possible, within the same schoolcommunity, for pupils to follow pre-university as well as higher general

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continued education. Comprehensive schools may provide these facilities. Until now these combinations do not exist." The Current Conflict in English

Education

So much for Holland—how is it in England ? As many of you perhaps know, there is a great controversy now going on as to the relative merits of the old G r a m m a r School, the Modern Secondary School, and the Comprehensive High School. Besides talking with officials at the Ministry of Education, with professors of education, with just plain citizens, as well as reading religiously the weekly Educational Supplement of the London Times—I went so far as to visit two Comprehensive High Schools in the London area. One of these was the oldest of the comprehensive schools which had gone through all the pangs of birth and development and the other, the newest and best in terms of plant, curriculum, faculty and reputation. There is no question in my mind that the Comprehensive High Schools in England are more or less patterned after ours, although they certainly are not carbon copies. And there seems little question that in the thinking of both conservative and liberals (these labels being used in the educational and not the political sense!) The Comprehensive High School represents a revolution in English education and some say, a social revolution as well. A great many believe that the G r a m m a r School will not be eliminated in England by any means but that the Comprehensive High School may, eventually, become the backbone of the secondary system. What is revolutionary about it is that all the children of all the people, representing a very wide range of intelligence and social class, are being educated now in the one school on several different tracks. One clearly observed consequence which has already emerged in the operation of these schools is that a higher percentage of both boys and girls are remaining in school. One of the great questions in my mind when I visited the English comprehensive schools was this: are good standards being maintained for all, and, especially, are the ablest students being stimulated to optimum performance? I got the distinct impression that the ablest students were being pushed to make good showings academically but was not able to determine whether it went further than this. Incidentally, I believe that English, and European education generally, is

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confined on the secondary level, much more than ours is, to sheer acquisition of information. European students, therefore, will usually tend to star in tests involving the possession of information. Whether they would measure up in some of the other attributes we strive for: self-reliant approach to problems, effective procedures in problemsolving, self-direction, use of independent judgment and the like, I am not so sure. One American Fulbrighter in Europe reported a university professor as saying that " o u r students come up to the universities knowing more than they need to know" and that they "were afraid to be wrong." No Tendency to Exalt Science I did not find, either in England or Holland, that any particular and immediate compulsion was being felt to exalt science and engineering to the apex of education. In Holland there is everywhere the feeling that the country must shift from an agricultural economy to a technological economy and that education should follow this trend but no disposition to stress science at the cost of every thing else. In England, the founding of Churchill College in science and technology, at Cambridge University, represents a very definite index of the trend toward more attention to technology in higher education. But science is still regarded as just one aspect of education and not the heart or core of it. In the struggle between the "classic" or "humanistic" view of education vs. the "technological" view, I did not observe that the technological view was pushing out the others, by any means, anywhere in Europe. It is true that, by and large, the European system beyond the basic primary school is, on the one hand, an education for a small intellectual elite in a program consisting of very intensive preparation for later university work and, on the other hand, a collection of training opportunities of a vocational character for those less academically gifted. The separation seems pretty distinct and pretty drastic between the " U " and the " n o n - U " . Secondary school preparation for the University will include six years of mathematics and six years of science for a substantial number of the students in these schools. N o student of high intelligence (and all of these students have high scholastic aptitude) can go through six years of

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this kind of study without acquiring a lot of useful information. This group can't be compared with our high school students in general, however, but only with the upper portion of our student enrollment in college preparatory courses. On academic information, the European student may excel and this is almost the sole criterion for him, while for our student, it is only one of the criteria on which his performance and achievement is judged. But this is one of the criteria we may have too long neglected. If so, the condition should be corrected but not by substituting for our own system an alien philosophy and structure of education. I am heartily in agreement with the Conant report that our comprehensive high school should be preserved. It should remain a school where a general education is offered for all the children of all the people and where different levels of ability are satisfactorily served from a social as well as individual viewpoint. I should like to say something about Teacher Education but before getting into that, let me mention two aspects of the educational scene in both Holland and England that profoundly impressed me. These two aspects are rarely if ever mentioned but in my observation they represent two of the most important elements of all. I refer to the factor of motivation among pupils and the matter of professional authority in education. Student Motivation and Professional

Authority

In visiting around various schools in Holland, it seemed to me that the pupils came into the school each day with a built-in motivation toward academic achievement. Teachers did not have to strive particularly to arouse this, or so it looked to me. The natural expectation was that the pupils would strive to do their best in their studies and assignments. My favorite theory is that the Dutch generally are a people who are used to working for what they have, and a people in whom it is second nature to strive, to persist, to exercise the will in wresting their livelihoods from the sea and the land. Consequently, the children of Holland imbibe with their mother's milk an achievement motive which their life in the family and their education in school does nothing to weaken. There is more to it than this, of course, so far as academic motivation is concerned. Because the selection processes

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are severe, with only a minority (now 12 per cent) getting into vacancies in secondary schools preparing for the university, and because failure in school is thus heavily penalized so far as career opportunity is concerned, the children are driven by their own anxieties and by parental admonitions to keep "hitting the books." Of course, this is not altogether a good thing. I could not help but think, however, that we could do with a little more of both these kinds of motivation: namely, an achievement motivation fundamental in the culture, and persisting career motivation, minus the anxiety feature. Another thing which impressed me in both Holland and England (and I think it tends to be true in Europe generally) was the degree of professional authority possessed by the school administrator, the teacher and the professor. This is partly a matter of traditional status and partly a matter of the cultural respect paid to someone in a professional position who is automatically supposed to have the competence commensurate with his responsibilities. While there are plenty of committees and plenty of practical democracy in Holland, people in authority are expected to know their job and to do their job. There is not much "passing of the buck" so far as I could see. As a consequence of this, the teacher and the administration have a certain professional authority in which they are clothed. This, of course, can sometimes go too far. The relationship between teacher and pupil, between professor and student, for example, is not, I believe, as good a relationship as we generally enjoy in our schools and colleges. I am myself a great believer in the friendly, sharing relationship that exists in the learning process in this country and I am happy to think I was able to convey in some small measure, the meaning of this relationship in my seminars at the University of Amsterdam. This kind of relationship is not a usual thing in Europe. There is, however, another side to this matter of authority. In some respects I believe we have suffered because the essential functional authority and accompanying respect which ought to go along with a responsible position as teacher or administrator is not always present. For myself, I would rather that an imbalance between extremes existed on the side of less authority rather than more, but in Europe I saw both the advantages and disadvantages of a situation in which professional authority was not answerable at every turn in the road to some pressure group and where educators are highly respected.

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Methods

I visited various schools during my stay in Holland and sat in various classrooms on different levels of the system. In the primary schools, it seemed to me that the approach and the methods were much like our own and it is no coincidence that it is the primary level of education in Holland which for years has enjoyed the advantage of professional training in teacher's colleges. U p till now, there has been very little preparation of secondary school and university teachers in pedagogy and teaching practice. As a result, one of the w eakest links of the school system is in teaching procedure on the secondary level. In both Holland and England, until fairly recently, it has not been deemed necessary that a secondary school teacher, or university teacher know anything but subject matter. This is not now regarded as a strength, however, but as a serious liability and so in both countries legislation and regulations are being put into force such that secondary teachers in the future will have to know something about the education process and something about teaching. In Holland, secondary teachers are now required to undertake a year of university instruction in psychology and pedagogy for certification. This is a problem which we met years ago but still have not completely solved. The question now seems to be, not whether prospective teachers should be trained in skill as well as knowledge, but what shall be the best balance between general cultural courses, subject-matter courses and professional-training courses in the preparatory process. Many teacher-training institutions throughout the country have attained such a balance, I believe, and in spite of the poor press we have had I think we actually have made progress as a result of the fracas. At any rate, I can report that the absence of teacher-training does not improve the educative process as I observed it in Europe. Should Retain Our Present

Structure

And now, in conclusion, I want to say with all possible emphasis that I returned from Europe more American than ever, and more firm in my belief that we need to retain our own structure of education, our own purposes of education and our own methods of education.

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Changes and improvements in content ? Yes, by all means. Clarification of purposes? Of course. Refinement of methods? Certainly. But all of these within the existing framework of educational structure. As expressed in my recent book, A Strategy for American Education, I believe we should not go back upon our traditions and ideals in education but rather carry them further and implement them to an even greater extent in terms of personal development and social development. To return to a kind of education which would emphasize the absorption and retention of book information above everything else; that would maximize conformance and minimize independent thinking and self-reliance; that would focus attention on the glories of the past rather than the problems of the present; that would limit educational opportunity to a select few beyond primary school; that would grant everything to social demand and nothing to individual needs—this would indeed be a conservative revolution in American education and it would be a long step backward in my opinion. I believe we should raise achievement expectancies in our schools for all the children, not only for the ablest. I believe we need to pay much more attention to the development of intellectual processes in the broadest sense. I also believe that we need to develop individual personality as well as to inculcate clear knowledge of subject matters, habits and convictions of citizenship, skill in communication and human relationship. In a country where the identity of the individual is not established by social position at birth but where the individual is more or less free, and is given the opportunity to create his own life pattern, it seems that the basic function of education should be to help the individual formulate a self-definition and to help him develop and to relate his potentialities to this self-definition as he proceeds. Let us be done with sterile conflicts, and controversies and get ahead with our true educational business not as imitators but as free and creative pioneers in achieving to the highest the promise of our own culture, our own system of government and our own system of education.

A French Projessor's on American HENRI

Remarks

Education PEYRE*

E

of the few ways, and perhaps the surest of those few ways, in which we can hope ever to transform the world into a more tolerable abode, and turn man into a creature fully worthy of the name. Americans have always revered education and, more than any other people, they have attempted to extend it to the whole of their population. Yet they are also harassed with doubts as to the degree of their success, quantitative and qualitative. Have they given enough people an adequate amount of knowledge and of wisdom? Have they not diluted the essentials of education overmuch by being content with providing everyone with a mediocre education, since they lacked the manpower, the material means and perhaps the genuine will, to give everybody an adequate education, and to select the able students for a preferred, hence more arduous training which might turn them into leaders of thought, of imagination, of action? The challenge of the "Sputniks" brought to a climax much criticism DUCATION IS ONE

* Professor

of French,

Yale

Universities.

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of American education which, since Woodrow Wilson, John Maynard Hutchins, Walter Lippmann, Arthur Bestor and others uttered it, had remained unheeded. A French professor, who has chosen to teach in this country because he has always had faith in its youth and in its energy is not going to j u m p on the band wagon of much inconsiderate and hasty fault finding with his adopted country. Let us not foolishly and masochistically repudiate the good which has been accomplished, and which must not be "interred with the bones" of Leika, the Russian dog catapulted into space. But let us not, on the other hand, underestimate the power of that dog. Our profession has often had the courage to shun idle boasting and to distrust charts and data about the ever-swelling numbers of our college boys and Ph.D's. It knows that the goals of excellent education are not easily reached, and must always be set higher. It responds with constructive humility to the challenge now thrown at us by other countries and by America's manifest destiny, which is to help the world save itself in the second half of this century, the American half-century. It has been pointed out lately that much of what we envied in the Russian educational system (hard work, stress on tough subjects, mental discipline, large role assigned to science and languages) had had its sources in the educational system first developed by Napoleonic France, later adopted and improved by Germany. Much is probably excellent in French secondary education; but discipline, uniformity, unity, the emphasis on general culture and on pure science, have not necessarily produced in France a disciplined people, political stability, fiscal discipline or the greatest physicists and chemists of our age. Let us not propose one nation as a sole model to be revered by others. In any case, an educational system should be, and usually is, an internal secretion of a country, a reflection of its history and of its aims, clearly or dimly perceived. Exotic plants can be grafted to the native stem only with the greatest prudence. On the other hand, a country which has, today, to assume the leadership of a large part of the world cannot be content with complacency or with provincialism. Education at its best is a Liberation f r o m fear, superstition, egocentric prejudices. It may gain from studying what has been attempted elsewhere and f r o m the constructive strictures of foreign educators in its midst. I came to teach in America as a young man, not to escape the war

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ridden and culture soaked European continent, but to discover something new over here. I taught for a few years at Bryn Mawr College: a Frenchman is naturally convinced that sentimental education should be acquired soon after the intellectual training; and feminine colleges can teach a young French male not only sentiment, but prudence, diplomacy, patience, and the value of frustration and sublimation. I returned to my native land, taught in several countries, observed and compared. At the age of thirty-eight, I came back to America and threw in my lot with the educators of this country. Doubtless, more than by material advantages, libraries easy of access, or the gentlemanly sport of faculty meetings where one learns how to be suavely bored and to call it an instructive experience, I was attracted by the youth of this country, its energy, its freshness, its receptivity to the teachers' sermons of all kinds, and by the freedom f r o m traditions and from fixed syllabi which prevails over here. The lack of standardization, even if it occasionally carries with it a lack of standards, is a welcome novelty to a European-trained educator who feels free to initiate reforms and to experiment. A certain informality, through which professors are treated like big brothers by students, or like male nurses ever ready to listen and to confess, has its charm after the august but cold reverence shown to scholars in Europe. Knowledge in America, when it is not destined to learned conventions where one makes a point of showing how smart it is to know more and more about less and less, is made directly relevant to life. An undergraduate may call us up at our home to ask if we think he would learn more, on the vexing question of how to treat his date from Vassar, from reading Othello or Μ anon Lescaut or Proust's analysis of Swann in love. How many young tourists to France have brought their dollars and their illusions to that country because they were convinced that most French girls resembled Madame Bovary or the heroine of La Dame aux camelias! The drawbacks of such freedom are, however, real. There is often no core of knowledge assimilated by all the students of several comparable schools; no common stock of allusions to the Bible, to ancient mythology, and European history; little effort made at integrating the fragments of learning picked up at random or according to the teacher's whim. Secondary education is so varied in those respects that colleges have to spend one or two years reteaching fundamentals

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of grammar, of calculus, of history, of literary analysis to young people who should come with that preparation. Moreover, while there prevails a fine democratic informality on our campuses and students may say everything and anything in discussion courses, in their college papers, even in the essays that they hand to us, they actually fail to say much, or to think boldly and with originality. Their meekness, their gregariousness impress their teachers as extraordinary marks of humility in a nation which some Europeans believe to be addicted to boastfulness. The differences between American and European education are to be explained in part by the divergent aims pursued in the two continents. In Europe, in France in particular, the aim was traditionally to train civil servants, teachers, doctors, lawyers, diplomats, army officers. It was easy for gifted boys to receive the best education, even in the eighteenth century, and to rise to the top. Yet on the whole it was not a mass education, but that of a cultured class, consisting chiefly of state olficials. Business men counted but little, and were normally considered as men who could not ascend to the loftier level of a liberal profession. Technical and vocational training was relatively neglected. Such a system, however, offers dangers in the modern world. It is no longer possible to be placidly content with traditional humanism, which left out too many barbarians from outside (underprivileged lands, Asiatics, Africans) and too many barbarians from inside (workmen, peasants). This country has boldly attempted to pursue new goals. It has insisted upon education being practical at all costs and upon its enabling boys and girls to take up a trade at once and make money on it. Extreme vocationalism, however, has its dangers. Those who go to the top in life are seldom those who were narrowly prepared for one j o b alone and acquired the needed know-how. The humanist who is not starch bound by traditions and complacency is often a more flexible individual, and one far more likely to succeed, than the narrowly trained specialist. The evil of training specialists is that we tend to make them, and ourselves, believe that most problems in life are susceptible of being solved through accumulation of quantitative data and by experts. One tends to overlook the fact that an insight into the emotions and the ideas which have always moved men is ever more essential than technical knowledge. "Think h o w " matters

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more than " K n o w how". An excess of vocational specialization brings us close to the level of the animal, the bee, the ant, the beaver, which can do one thing to perfection, but one alone. It turns us into what a Spanish thinker has called "barbarians o f specialization." In our offices, factories and even on our campuses, the need today is for men who think freely, against the tide, who venture on the borderlines of charted lands of knowledge, who attempt paradoxes, not out of a desire to outsmart their colleagues, but because paradoxes often become the truths of tomorrow. A European professor who lives in America soon comes to develop a genuine admiration for business-men: they work far harder than he does, they are harassed by arduous problems and often, martyrs o f the modern world, their heart collapses at forty-five or fifty from the tension undergone. They have to meet a payroll, to avoid being in the red, to practice the exhausting art of lobbying, to face the demands of labor unions and the resistance of consumers to publicity and gadgets; they worry about how to spend their expense account or how to keep their wives happy with mink coats and platinum rings. A number of them, and the scions or great business barons who once developed railroads, oil wells or glass works, go into politics or accept embassies abroad. Their civic devotion is admirable; but their performance sometimes is less so. At a time when this country needs representatives abroad and statesmen at home with almost superhuman gifts of imagination, intelligence and tact, it must be confessed that it finds those giants with difficulty. One of the reasons is perhaps that government and diplomacy are not just another type of business. They require very different gifts, a readiness to face the unpredictable, an independence from quantitative data and economic charts and diagrams, and acceptance of the fundamental irrationality of man, and even of woman (the more reasonable and calculating sex) for which their training has failed to prepare them. The reading of novels would perhaps reveal more of life, in its baffling unpredictability, and of human nature, to business men than the memorization of statistics and the study of marketing. Behind American education, there lurks probably a philosophy which differs from that which underlies education in old countries like France. Man is innately good or can become so, and the child is essentially right. From Rousseau and Wordsworth, that romantic

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view of the goodness of man appears to have come down to a country which once was the paradise of austere Puritanism. Even Freudianism, which has tried hard to demolish that myth, has not yet convinced Americans that the child is a prey to evil instincts, erotic urges, preyed upon by lurid vices. Hence, while in France parents do their very best to have their children behave like them, in this country it is the children, despots of the home and noisy possessors of playgrounds, who force their parents to behave like them. The purity of the child must at all costs be preserved. Studies are made easy for him. He has counselors at every stage; grammar, declensions, geography, physics are made entertaining; soft chairs are provided in libraries so that he may doze after three or four pages of reading: illustrations enliven textbooks which might be too forbidding; novels are cut up into comics so that images may succeed one another before his eyes quickly enough so that none of them will provoke a thought. Clifton Fadiman has branded that fault in American education as "the decline of attention." The student is invited or forced to passively absorb what is offered to him. He will thus be less resistant, in life, to the lures of publicity and to the hammering of slogans. He will be a docile consumer of goods, but untrained to discriminate and apt to leave his personality undeveloped. Yet the modern world, as every Commencement speech these days recalls to us, needs non-conformists. The opportunities offered to American education at the present time are unequaled. There are many excellent teachers, first rate schools and American universities rate among, not only the richest but the best in the world. But the demands made by this challenge of history to the United States are such that the good achieved is not enough. Europeans often prove severe in their criticism of America, but behind their severity there is much disappointed expectation. They would wish Americans to be even superior to what they are now. And indeed they could be. There is so much to learn in the modern world, ten times more geography, physics, sociology, economics, history than a century ago; there are so many more languages, national cultures to be informed about, so much in the exterior world and in the nether world of man's subconscious, that twice as much time at least than ever before should be devoted to education. If that is not possible, at

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least the American child should be made to start his schooling earlier, to study more intensively while at school, to waste no time by going straight to hard subjects, and to pursue his education after college, through reading and thinking assiduously after twenty-five. That education should include much precise knowledge and the accumulation of facts and precise data, but distrust the worship of facts and stress ideas and that inventive faculty called imagination. It should turn out men of affairs and scientists and engineers, to be sure, but also first-rate educators and many more men apt to be diplomats, statesmen, even—for the work stands badly in need of rehabilitation—politicians. "Politics are more difficult than physics," Einstein used to say, " a n d the world is more apt to die from bad politics than of bad science." The American of tomorrow should be informed on the rest of the world and eschew provincialism; he should face the future with the audacity and the energy which have always characterized his nation but not ignore the best in the legacy of the past which still lives in and around us. He should fulfill the wish expressed by Margaret Fuller when she distinguished three kinds of Americans and placed at the top "the thinking American, a man who, recognizing the immense advantages of being born to a new world . . . yet does not wish one seed from the past to be lost."

III Higher Education

Responsibilities

oj Colleges and

Universities for

Training

School Personnel JOHN DALE

RUSSELL*

T

HE TOPIC ΤΟ be discussed on the program this afternoon has in it an implicit assumption that should be clearly understood at the outset. The training, or I would prefer to call it the "preparation," of school personnel is today a responsibility of colleges and universities. It was not always so. A century ago one who was going to teach could make whatever preparation he saw fit. There was little opportunity for him to get specific preparation in an institution recognized as a college or university. There were no requirements to be met, other than the ability to convince some local school committee that one should have the job. The chief requisites for finding employment in a school were availability and willingness to "keep school." But today every State guards the entrance to positions in its public schools by requirements of preparation that specify college-level

• Director, Office of Institutional Research, New York University. Q.Q.A.E.-C

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studies. M a n y of the States make the same requirements of those who are to teach in privately controlled schools. Thus the universal legal requirements in the United States today put responsibility for the preparation of school personnel on the colleges and universities. It is appropriate to consider the nature of that responsibility. In the development of the topic assigned me, I shall mention a dozen separate responsibilities that, in my opinion, devolve on the modern college or university for the preparation of school personnel. I should like not to limit my discussion to "public" school personnel, as the program indicates, for I believe the responsibilities are the same for the preparation of personnel for both the publicly and the privately controlled schools. The first responsibility I would suggest for colleges and universities in the preparation of school personnel is the identification of the kinds of work in the schools for which preparation might well be provided at the college level. The State certification requirements will afford some guidance. In general, however, certification requirements tend to follow, rather than precede, the demonstration by institutions of higher education that they can provide preparation that is useful to personnel in a given kind of school work. It seems therefore important for the colleges and universities to be responsible for maintaining continuous studies of the operations and personnel in the school systems, to discover opportunities for their improvement through preparation that may be provided at the college level. There should be considerable cautious experimentation with training programs for new kinds of positions, and a clear demonstration of the need for and value of such training, before the requirement is written into the certification code at the State level. The range of positions in the schools already recognized as demanding college preparation is large. The first to be recognized was classroom teaching, and the various kinds of classroom teachers have commonly been prepared through differentiated programs. Preparation for school administration has also been recognized as essential. The variety of administrative positions occupied by school personnel has produced many differentiated programs for the preparation of such officials as principals, superintendents, and supervisors. Beyond these core elements of the usual training programs, for teachers and school administrators, the colleges and universities have experimented

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successfully with specialized training programs for many other kinds of school personnel, such as visiting teachers, school nurses, school business officers, school bus drivers, and even for custodians. As specialization in school services continues the number of different kinds of positions for which college preparation is appropriate will undoubtedly increase. The process of identifying the kinds of school positions for which preparation should be offered in colleges and universities should be carried on with close co-operation between the institutions of higher education and the school systems. It might well be expected that the first source of identification of the training needs would be at the operating level, where the supervisory officials, or the workers themselves, see opportunity to get better job performance by improving the competency of the personnel through training. But oftentimes an outside observer, and especially one who has had opportunity to observe critically in many different school systems, can suggest areas of school operations in which the services might be improved if the workers had further training. Sometimes also one, who is broadly familiar with the resources accumulated from research in the rapidly expanding field of professional education, can suggest the desirability of training programs that have not been given consideration by school people who are unfamiliar with the resources that are available for training. The second responsibility, after the identification of the kinds of school personnel for which preparation should be offered, is for the college or university to arrange the appropriate learning experiences sequentially into an organized curriculum to provide the necessary training. This implies, first of all, some selection by the institution of the kinds of school positions for which it will offer specialized preparation. Institutions that do not have large resources and large enrollments will wisely limit their programs of preparation to the kinds of school positions that are in greatest demand and to which the training programs may make important contributions among the constituency and within the area served. After deciding what kinds of preparation are to be offered, the institution must next make a decision as to the academic level at which the training must be offered. Do the learning experiences seem especially suited to students of the freshmen and sophomore level,

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or to those in the junior and senior years of the undergraduate curriculum, or to graduate students? In some cases this question has already been answered by State certification requirements. Certain of the school positions seem to have a natural order of progression. Thus one must almost certainly be a teacher before one becomes a principal or a superintendent. If one cannot become a teacher until the bachelor's degree is attained, then the preparation for school administration seems logically to belong at the graduate level. The order of prerequisite experience is not the same for other positions in the school system, such as business manager, director of research, school nurse, or bus driver, but these other positions may also have certain necessary prerequisite training or experience that more or less naturally indicates the academic level at which the preparation would be appropriate. In organizing the program of preparation, perhaps the most difficult decision relates to the selection and arrangement of its content. This is known as curriculum-building, sometimes referred to as the favorite indoor sport of the faculties of American colleges and universities. It is customary, in thinking about programs of preparation for school service, to discuss three major elements. These three elements perhaps cannot be completely separated in actual practice, but their separation is useful for purposes of discussion and for stating curriculum requirements. The first of the elements in a well organized program of preparation for school personnel is the professional content. If the organized curriculum has any validity whatever as a specialized form of preparation, its justification rests on the existence of ideas, facts, techniques, skills, or other learning experiences that contribute directly to a better performance on the job. It is the business of the professional element in the curriculum to give the student opportunity to master these essentials for effective professional performance. Curriculums for the preparation of school personnel have been criticized, perhaps justly, for over-proliferation of professional content. The question of how much professional content should be included is difficult to answer. If left completely to the college professor of education, who, like the professors of all other subjects, is firmly convinced of the great value of the vast range of knowledge in the subject in which he has high competence himself, the professional content set up in the organized training curriculum is likely to be

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extensive. I understand fully such a point of view, having been a professor of education myself for many years. Some will consider me a renegade or apostate when I express the opinion that the professional content of the curriculum for the preparation of school personnel, particularly those who will enter educational service as teachers, should be distinctly limited. I would suggest that the test of each element to be included be whether or not the young graduate will find it essential in the first year or two of his or her service. Learnings that are acquired in a training program and that cannot be applied and used relatively soon thereafter, are likely to be forgotten and to be ineffective. It is entirely sound to expect that a graduate in a school-teaching position will learn some things on the job. Most schools expect that those holding teaching positions will, at least in the earlier years of their service, pursue some further preparation. Learnings that take place after the student has had some background of experience, to which the ideas may be attached, are likely to be much more fruitful than those that are only abstractions and unrelated to any objective situation in the experience of the student at the time of first contact with the idea. My advice is to make a rigorous selection, among the accumulated ideas and facts and the tested skills available in the professional field of education, of what will be included in the program for the initial preparation for those entering school service. Save a few good things for teaching in the later stages of the student's preparation, after he or she has been out and had experience as a teacher. Another criticism that is often made, and sometimes justly I believe, is that the courses in the professional field are unduly repetitive, with much overlapping and duplication in their content. A study of the listings in college catalogs of the courses offered by departments and schools of education will lend considerable support to this criticism. For example a recently published report for the State-controlled colleges and universities in Michigan shows that in three colleges, where the primary emphasis is on teacher education, the different courses in education that were open to undergraduates totalled, respectively, 27,29, and 35 semester hours, a relatively modest offering. But in other Michigan institutions, several of them of the university type, the different courses in education that were open to undergraduates totaled 77 semester hours, 102 semester hours, 201 semester

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hours, 202 semester hours, and 402 semester hours, respectively. These higher totals represent an astonishingly large range of supposedly different courses in education that are open to undergraduate students. The situation in Michigan is probably typical of that in institutions preparing teachers elsewhere in the country. How much really different content is there, in the professional subject of education, to which undergraduate students should be exposed? I would readily admit that for students specializing in education at the graduate level there is properly a place for a wide range of choice among specialized courses. But I would like to have these highly specialized courses reserved for the graduate students, and not given prematurely and promiscuously to undergraduates without regard for their real needs. One can quite properly raise a question as to whether there is solid content equal to 200 semester hours, or 100 semester hours, or even 50 semester hours in the professional field of education, that is suitable for teaching to undergraduate students, the great majority of whom in these days have never had full-time experience in a school situation and are preparing for their first position as a teacher. The college or university owes it to the students, in the required professional elements of the undergraduate curriculum, to select the content that will be most useful to them, and to present it in a series of courses that avoid duplication and repetition of content, except as repetition may be deliberately planned for reinforcement of learnings. Much more might be said about the professional content of the program for the preparation of school personnel, but I shall leave that for the discussion period, if there is interest in it. Two other elements in the program of preparation need emphasis. One is a thorough grounding in some one or more fields of subject-matter, pursued to the extent of specialization typical of an undergraduate major. The subject or subjects of academic specialization should normally be chosen for those customarily taught in the public schools. The other major element in the program is a broad, general education, to acquaint the student with the important areas of human thought and knowledge. This is a part of the equipment of any well educated man or woman. Certainly we must have broadly educated people for service in the schools. In the distribution of emphasis among the three major elements in

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the curriculum for preparing school personnel, it would seem desirable to provide, first, the maximum opportunity for general education. The next important concern should be to get a good development in one or more fields of subject-matter concentration. Third place, in the degree of emphasis, might well be assigned to the professional content part of the student's curriculum. It must be confessed that the training programs for school personnel are usually developed in exactly the opposite order of emphasis, just as I have distributed my time in this discussion. Primary attention is usually given to the professional content. Attention is next centred on a concentration in one or more subject-matter areas. Whatever time is left is given to socalled general requirements and electives, which may or may not add up to a good general education. If the concern is to get a well educated personnel in the school systems, major attention should certainly be given to the organization and scope of the content that is designed for general education. Thus far two responsibilities have been mentioned for colleges and universities that prepare school personnel: the identification of the kinds of positions for which preparation is needed; and the organization of curriculums that prepare students for school positions. The third responsibility in institutions that prepare school personnel is to provide the facilities necessary for good instruction in the curriculums it offers. First of all, in the list of important facilities, is a highly qualified faculty. The qualifications for those who prepare school personnel are very exacting. Too often in the past the faculty of the department or school of education has been a refuge for misfits in the public school system, or for broken-down school administrators, who can no longer get or hold the better-paying jobs in the public schools systems of the State. Good salaries are an absolute essential for attracting and retaining a well qualified faculty. The requirements for faculty membership in a college or university that prepares school personnel should stipulate the highest level of scholarly attainment. Equally important are demonstrated competence in professional practice, and exceptional ability as a teacher at the college level. I am inclined, however, to doubt the wisdom of requiring any specific number of years of teaching experience as a basis for the employment of faculty members for an institution that

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prepares teachers. Some people gain competence rapidly from a very limited experience. Others only have their errors of procedure more strongly confirmed by repetition through long years of experience. Another facility that is extremely important for an effective program of preparation of school personnel is a good library. The schools need personnel with scholarly attitudes and backgrounds. A good library, and encouragement to use it extensively, are sound elements in any program of preparation for service in the schools. The entire physical plant for instructional purposes should be satisfactory in an institution that prepares school personnel. The plant should afford complete facilities for all the elements of a modern educational program. The physical facilities should be such as to encourage learning and to provide good teaching conditions. An important but often neglected feature of a satisfactory physical plant in an institution of higher education is a private office for each member of the faculty where he can hold conferences with students and where he can carry on his scholarly activities outside the classroom. Any college or university that offers a program of preparation for school personnel should have adequate facilities for observation of actual school situations, for the demonstration of superior practices, and for extensive participation in the kind of activity for which the student is preparing. Just how such facilities will be provided is a matter for decision within the individual institution. Many educators believe that the best facilities are provided by having a campus school under the direct control and administration of the college or university. Many other educators are of the opinion that the best facilities for observation, demonstration, and participation in an actual school situation can be arranged through co-operation with local public school systems in the vicinity of the institution. It is my own personal opinion that the cooperative arrangement with public school systems is not only more economical but actually better for the preparation of public school personnel. Seldom can the campus school provide all the facilities that are needed, especially for practice teaching. It is well for students in training to see conditions as they actually exist in an operating school system, rather than in a campus school which may not be entirely typical of the general run of public schools in many respects. Beyond the actual facilities of faculty, library, physical plant, and

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opportunities for observation, demonstration, and participation in an actual school situation, the college or university that prepares school personnel needs to maintain an environment in which school service is respected and accorded prestige as an important profession in modern society. Students who have entered a program of preparation for school service should be made to feel that the curriculum they are following is a significant part of the entire operation of the institution. They should not be looked upon as inferior or second-class, in comparison with students who are preparing for other callings, such as law or engineering or business administration. The institutional facilities should be such as to encourage a high degree of morale or esprit de corps in the group of students who are preparing for school service. Another important characteristic of an institution preparing students for service in the schools is an atmosphere in which research and scholarly investigation are encouraged, respected, and rewarded. A scholarly atmosphere is necessary, not so much because of the valuable product of research as such, but because of the stimulation that comes to the teaching process through creative scholarship and investigation. School personnel are the sources from which much of the foundation for the productive scholarship of the future is to be derived. They should be encouraged, by the very atmosphere of the institution where they get their preparation, to look upon research, investigation, and writing, as a part of the normal life of the competent educator. In summary, under this third responsibility of colleges and universities that prepare school personnel, mention has been made of the need for a half dozen sorts of facilities, such as a strong faculty, a good library, a satisfactory physical plant, suitable arrangements for students to observe and participate in actual school operations, the maintenance of an environment in which school work is accorded respect and dignity, and an atmosphere that encourages research and scholarly investigation. A fourth major responsibility that devolves on colleges and universities that prepare school personnel is the encouragement of properly qualified young people to enter the program in preparation for school service. The responsibility of recruitment for the profession does not lie solely or perhaps even primarily with the institutions that offer the preparation. Perhaps one of the reasons for the present

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scarcity of well prepared teachers is that no agency has been assigned definite and primary responsibility for the recruiting function. In the present rather confused state of recruitment for teaching, the colleges and universities cannot stand idly by, assuming that the responsibility belongs elsewhere. Probably the chief responsibility should rest with the school systems and their leaders. Certainly every person engaged in educational service should feel some responsibility for recruitment of new talent for the profession. The colleges and universities should participate in the efforts of the leaders in each state to encourage properly qualified young people to undertake a program of preparation for school service. A fifth major responsibility of colleges and universities that prepare school personnel is to select carefully the students who are to be admitted to programs of preparation. The principal problem at present involves the selection of those who will be permitted to prepare for teaching. It must be recognized that currently there are few if any valid criteria available on which to predict success in school work for any student planning to prepare for teaching. There should, however, be some experience that would at least be helpful in counseling entering students about their probabilities of success as teachers. It would seem to be a responsibility of the institutions that prepare teachers to develop criteria that will predict reasonably accurately at least the extremes of failure and success, and thus make possible a refusal of admission to those whose ambitions to enter school teaching are clearly beyond their capabilities. In the anxiety to get enough reasonably well qualified people prepared to meet the needs for new teachers, the colleges and universities have, in my opinion, been entirely too willing to allow and even to encourage anybody and everybody to get ready to teach. While 1 have no statistics to prove it, I firmly believe that this policy actually contributes to the shortage of well qualified teachers. Young people with good capabilities simply are not attracted to an occupation that is open to all comers regardless of qualifications. My belief is that, by tightening up the requirements for entrance to a program of teacher preparation, we might actually do a great service, not only in getting better qualified people into teaching, but in actually increasing the numbers who seek the necessary preparation. A subordinate question arises with respect to the point in the

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student's career when he or she will be formally entered upon a program of preparation for teaching. Should it be a unified program, beginning with the freshman year, as in the engineering curriculum? Or should entrance be postponed until after a good foundation in the liberal arts and general education has been laid, as is characteristic of education for law and medicine? Personally I lean toward the policy of providing for formal entrance on the program of preparation for teaching after the completion of two years of broad, general education. I would want, however, to see a limited contact with professional courses in education even in those first two years of college studies. Such contacts would serve at least three purposes: to keep alive the student's interest in entering the profession of education; to provide exploratory experience so that the student may test the depth of his interest and the firmness of his decision to prepare for teaching; and to provide the institution with a basis f o r j u d g i n g whether the student has the capabilities that qualify him for entrance on the truly professional part of the program of preparation. The thread of contact with professional courses, during the period when the student is mainly engaged in getting a broad and general education, can be justified fully on the basis of the contribution such courses themselves make to the student's general education. Even if the student never does become a teacher, the odds are very great that he or she will become a parent. A substantial knowledge of schools and school systems and the educational process is eminently justifiable as a part of education for citizenship, and for future membership in the parent-teacher association. If the formal entrance on teacher preparation is delayed until the junior year of college, the institution has a much better basis for judging the student's qualifications. Refusal of admission should be less painful to the student than a decision to refuse continuance at that point if the student has been admitted to the teacher-preparation program as a freshman. In any event, the opportunity to continue in the program should be rigorously guarded at the point where the student is permitted to start practice teaching. Only those students who are considered by the responsible faculty members of the college to be reasonably sure of success in teaching should be permitted to go into practice teaching. Perhaps more important than the controls over entrance at the

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undergraduate level are those for admission to the advanced programs at the graduate level, particularly for preparation for school administration. Here again the gates are usually wide open at present. Anyone who has obtained a bachelor's degree and has lived through a year or two of teaching experience, of whatever quality, is likely to be allowed to embark on a program of preparation for school administration. Easy admission to training programs in school administration is not justified by any shortage of qualified personnel in this field, such as there is in the field of classroom teaching. It might be very much in the interest of the educational profession for the institutions that offer training programs to become considerably more selective than they are at present in their admissions to such curriculums. A sixth responsibility of the college or university that provides preparation for school personnel is to give the students the highest possible quality of teaching service. To a considerable extent, good teaching is learned by imitation. To expose prospective teachers to a poor quality of teaching in their college preparation, is exceptionally unfortunate. The requirement of good teaching applies particularly to the professional courses, and also to the academic content courses for specialization and for general education. It is often said that the quality of instruction is poorer at the college level than in either the elementary or secondary school, and that the poorest teaching of all at the college level is found in cour: -s in education. I have never seen valid evidence to support such an accusation. The fact that the statement is sometimes made, even irresponsibly, indicates the need to have positive evidence of the good quality of teaching in the courses taken by students preparing to enter school work. Certainly an institution that prepares school personnel should see to it that such students get the very best possible quality of teaching. A seventh responsibility of the institution preparing school personnel is to eliminate from the program students who show definite indication that they would be unsuccessful in school work. Some of these students should perhaps be guided into other programs of occupational preparation for which they show promise of success. In many colleges and universities the school or department of education is the dumping ground for students who prove incapable of following successfully curriculums in engineering, liberal arts, business administration, and other schools and departments that pride themselves on

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the rigorousness of their programs. It would seem that, in a normal situation, education should guide as many students out of its program as are guided into it from other programs where they have been unsuccessful. The college or university that prepares school personnel owes it to the school systems, that will employ the product of the training, to prevent obviously unfitted persons from making the preparation that leads more or less automatically to the teaching credential. The elimination process should not be based solely on the student's academic record, but personality defects that would unfit one for school work, if uncorrected, should also be a basis for elimination from the training program. While the unfit should be eliminated, every encouragement should be given to those who show real promise of success in school work. It is a tragic loss to the welfare of the country when a student, whose abilities warrant an extended period of schooling, drops out before completing his preparation. The college or university that prepares school personnel should be alert to spot the promising students early and to use every means of encouraging them to stay on to complete their preparation. The eighth responsibility that should be mentioned, for colleges and universities that provide preparation for school personnel, is an effective placement service for those who have completed their training. The placement service should be something more than a job-finding agency. It should be responsible for seeing that the right students get the right jobs, matching talents and capabilities with opportunities for service, so as to enable the school systems to get the maximum utilization from the investment that has been made in preparation. The placement service should not stop with the finding of the first j o b for graduates. It should continue as long as the alumnus remains in education service, so that he or she may move into an ever broadening range of activities and services. A ninth responsibility of the college or university that prepares school personnel is to carry on continuous follow-up studies on its graduates. The institution should not only know where every living graduate is located and what he or she is doing. It should also know how good the performance is, especially in the first few years following graduation. Follow-up studies can best be made by personal visits

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by institutional staff members of the college or university to the community in which the graduate is located. The follow-up studies serve two important purposes: (1) they offer opportunities to assist the young graduates in their adjustment to school work during the first years of their service; (2) they offer valuable possibilities for collecting ideas for the improvement of the programs of preparation. A tenth responsibility of the institution that prepares school personnel is to maintain an effective program of continuing education for those who have already entered the educational service, so that they can improve their effectiveness and meet requirements for up-grading and advancement into more important positions than they have been holding. This service to those who have already entered on their educational work, like the follow-up studies of recent graduates, is also a useful source of ideas about improvements in the training programs themselves. In many cases the actual conduct of the in-service education is a function of the local school system. Where that is the case, the college or university should be ready to provide a source of talent on which the school system can draw for its in-service training program. Some will question whether every institution that prepares school personnel should maintain a program of continuing education. It would seem that, both for the sake of the effect on the regular campus program, and also because of the unique constituency that every well established institution serves, the conduct of in-service training programs, or assistance to local school systems in the conduct of such programs, should be an obligation for almost every institution that prepares school personnel. An eleventh responsibility of the college or university that prepares school personnel is the maintenance of consultant and advisory services to the school systems within the area of its constituency. If the college or university is doing a good j o b in the preparation of school personnel, it will doubtless have on its staff experts in many kinds of specialized school service. These faculty members should be available to assist local school systems in solving problems that the less specialized staff of the local system is not equipped to handle. Here, again, the service is one that has an important reciprocal effect in vitalizing the teaching in the training program itself. Finally, the college or university that prepares personnel for school

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work has a responsibility for carrying on constant studies of its own operations by means of institutional research and self-study. Such studies should be directed toward the continual effort to improve the quality of the service of the college or university, and toward improved internal efficiency of operation. The ultimate objective of such studies is to get from the available resources more and better education than would otherwise be possible. In these remarks a rather lengthy list of responsibilities has been developed for any college or university that provides preparation for school personnel. Doubtless there are other responsibilities that might well be added to the list. Some of those that have been mentioned might well have been elaborated further. Enough has been said to indicate that a college or university should not lightly undertake to offer a program of preparation for school personnel. Unless the institution is prepared to do a good job, unless it intends to take on the full range of responsibilities that are incident to an effective program of preparing school personnel, it had better stay out of the business altogether. One sometimes sees a college in which the establishment of a program of teacher preparation has been envisioned as requiring only the addition of a professor of education to the staff. In some instances that I have known, there has not even been the addition of a professor of education, but some member of the existing staff, possibly one whose classes were dwindling in size because he was a poor teacher, would be detailed to teach courses in education and to head up a teacher-training program. Just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, so one professor of education, no matter how great his wisdom and vision, does not make a teacher-training program. The institution must be prepared to maintain the many other necessary features of the program, and to assume the varied range of important responsibilities that have here been outlined, if it intends at all to prepare school personnel. The varied nature of the activities and functions associated with the program for preparing school personnel makes it imperative that the responsibility be recognized on an institution-wide basis. It is not sufficient to set up a department or school of education within a college or university and to expect that unit to do the whole j o b of preparing school personnel. In the very largest universities it is

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sometimes possible to set up a unit such as a school or college of education, and to center completely all the services for preparing school personnel in that one unit of the university. In such cases it is necessary for the school or college of education to duplicate a great many services maintained elsewhere in the university. Seldom can the duplicated services be of equal quality and scope. Thus, even in these very large universities, one may raise a question as to whether the institution is mobilizing its total resources most effectively to serve the function of preparing school personnel. In smaller institutions, with multi-purpose programs, it is uneconomical, and in my opinion unwise, to try to set up a separate school or college to be solely responsible for the complete range of services and functions involved in preparing school personnel. The leadership in the program for the preparation of school personnel must certainly be lodged in the department or school of education, but active participation in the planning and maintenance of the program should be an institutionwide responsibility. Institutions that plan to prepare school personnel, and probably a good many of those already maintaining such programs, can well ask themselves searching questions about their ability to maintain effective programs, and about their willingness to commit the necessary resources to care for all the responsibilities involved in such service. The ultimate objective of such programs does not lie within the training institution, but in the service that must be rendered in the local school systems throughout the country. It is for such ends, and only for such ends, that the maintenance of programs of preparation for school personnel is justified.

Libraries and JAMES

Laboratories CREESE*

I

is H A R D L Y to be hoped that anything I may say to this audience on my announced subject, "Libraries and Laboratories," will be new to you. I cannot expect to reveal to librarians some new aspects of their own professional work or to describe in new terms the nature or management of the special libraries upon which scientists, technologists, and managers of industry must rely. In this company, I can speak only as a layman. Only my office recommends me, only the fact that I am an administrative officer of a college of technology which, from its beginning, has conducted a School of Library Science. One of the perquisites of my office is a privilege which I used in preparing for this engagement. I may call upon others for advice and suggestions. That is just what I did. There was promptly delivered to my desk a pile of books, periodicals, journals and reprints, each charmingly decorated with slips of pink paper inserted to mark the pages I should read. I eyed the pile of books for many days with feelings of gratitude and dismay, and remembered, at last, the sensible if gently cynical advice which a Dean of Theology gave to one of his T

* President, Drexel Institute of

Technology. 81

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student-preachers: "If you borrow from just one author, that is plagiarism; but if you take selections from the works of several authors, that is research." I found the marked passages interesting. What I was reading made clear to me that an excursion directly into library science would have to be along paths often traveled and well-worn by others more expert. I would, instead, travel at my own pace, wander as I chose, and pick my own outlooks. I will not attempt to speak as a librarian might. A Necessary

Alliance

The libraries and the laboratories which I know best are those in this very building, or in adjacent Drexel buildings, or in an architect's plans. My daily work makes me conscious of the necessary alliances between laboratories and libraries. They, the laboratories and libraries, came first on the list of new facilities urgently required at Drexel when its current program of development was initiated. Laboratories and libraries had to be rated first and were clearly of central importance in a modern university. We finished the Basic Science Center, a building for our laboratories for physics, chemistry and the biological sciences, in 1955. The next immediate undertaking had to be a new Library Center to house our central library and our Graduate School of Library Science. That new Center now has its shoulders well above ground and we shall invite you all to help us dedicate it in the summer of the coming year. The phrase Laboratories and Libraries might well have been the first slogan of the current Drexel Development Program. Our latest structures are the visible signs of a policy in education which remains in complete accord with the original purposes for which this Institute of Technology was given its charter in 1891. In the language of the Charter, a Corporation was formed " f o r the purpose of maintaining an industrial school. . . which shall afford to persons of both sexes. . . opportunities for education and improvement in Art, Science and Industry." What began as an industrial school grew to be a complex of colleges and, as I venture to assert, an industrial university. This and the other schools of technology which were established at about the same time as ours, represented then and still represent a relatively new force

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in higher education. It is the force of science and technology which in the 20th century has required a re-equipment of industry, a re-equipment of education, and a reorientation of libraries. Institutions

of Recent

Origin

Laboratories and libraries, as we know them in our schools today and in public education, are so common that we forget how new they are in popular education. They have a history there of hardly more than 50 years. In our several Drexel colleges we maintain close associations with many professional societies. Many have student chapters on our campus. With a few notable exceptions, those professional, technical, and learned societies are hardly older than the A.L.A.* or Drexel. Despite the present size, professional prestige and public influence of the great national associations, it should be remembered that these are all institutions of relatively recent origin. First of the few I shall mention is the American Society of Civil Engineers which was formed to express the distinction between military and civil engineering and which celebrated its hundredth anniversary only 6 years ago. That is an association of 42,000 whose newly-elected president, I am proud to say, is a Drexel alumnus. Next in age is the Society of Mechanical Engineers whose 50th birthday parties I attended in 1930. Its membership is 40,000. The other national engineering societies represented on our campus are: the Metallurgicals, 30,000 members, founded in 1871; the Electricals, 50,000 members, founded in 1884; and the chemicals, 15,000 members, founded in 1908. These are the engineering societies whose proceedings, journals, periodicals, reports, papers and monographs supply to the working engineer the current news of events, researches, developments and inventions of the engineering profession in 5 major fields. With them, likewise potent, and likewise productive of technical literature, may be named a few of countless other scientific, technical and learned societies, some of more general character, and some representative of the latest specializations: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, 53,000 members, founded in 1848, the * American Library Association.

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American Chemical Society, 74,000 members, founded in 1876; the American Physical Society, 12,000 members, founded in 1899; the Institute of Radio Engineers, 60,000 members, founded in 1912; and the Instrument Society of America, 8,000 members, founded in 1939. Without unduly extending the list but only to confirm the observation that this 20th century has been prolific in the production of professional and technical literature, I shall mention also a few professional associations in our other Drexel fields of technology: the American Home Economics Association, 22,000 members, founded in 1908; the Society for the Advancement of Management, 10,000 members, founded in 1912; the American Dietetic Association, 12,000 members, founded in 1917; and the Institute of Food Technologists, 4,500 members, founded in 1939. The Literature of Technology The proceedings of such societies, their periodicals and journals, constitute the current literature in technology. None of it is light reading. Much of it is comprehensible only to the members of the guild or mystery. It is a literature compact with formulae, charts, and graphs. Some of that literature, the most original and the most advanced, is understood by no layman. In the newest department of science, the writings of the most brilliant men are completely comprehended by fewer than the number of people living who can speak Sanskrit or can decipher cuneiform or hieroglyphic inscriptions. The laboratories have filled the libraries with vastly important information which too few of us can understand. If this highly industrialized society is to be intelligently managed, if the sciences are to be put to work as they must be, and if the forces of science and invention are to improve the conditions of human life rather than destroy it, incomparably greater numbers must be led to understand or, at least, taught how to use the new knowledge and the new, amazing instruments of science. That is where the librarian and the schoolman come in. Some few obvious facts about the literature of modern science and technology deserve far more consideration from us—amazed, puzzled and philosophic consideration—than we ever give them.

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Problems

First of all, we need to realize that the literature of the laboratory created in the past century, most of it in the past 50 years or less, multiplies and replaces itself with unbelievable rapidity. In many fields, what was written 10 years ago or even 5 years ago is already out of date. On this point of observation, as to proliferation and rapid obsolescence of scientific texts, I recall a day when my son (then a senior in mathematics at M.I.T.), sat down to read a book which I had recommended as a classical and beautifully written essay. The book was Sir James Jeans' The Stars in their Course. After a while I glanced at him and saw that he was smiling. I said to him that I had found Jeans absorbing and delightful, but that I had never thought of it as humorous! Why did he smile? "Well," he replied, "I do find it amusing. I realize that this is the first time I have ever read a serious work on modern physics which was written more than 30 years ago." An exposition of physics of 30 years ago is as oddly stale as the light fiction in the 'teens of the century. Its hypotheses are like the dress mother wore as a debutante; it is out of style now, out of date, and a bit ludicrous. There are 3,600 scientific and technical journals now published in the United States. Estimates of world production of scientific literature flabbergasting: 60 million pages annually or 100,000 volumes of 600 pages each, books enough each year to fill 10,000 feet or 2 miles of shelving. The rate at which publication increases is indicated by the fact that the published abstracts in just one field of science, that covered by "Chemical Abstracts", filled 19 volumes in the last decade and only 6 volumes in the preceding decade. This, therefore, is a proper comment on the literature of the laboratory: that the pace of research and publication has been disconcertingly rapid and is still accelerating. Comprehension and

Dissemination

A second observation to trouble us is that even the most conscientious scholar has today as much as he can do to keep up with the publications in his own narrowly bounded field of specialization. If he

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is a physicist, he has no time to comprehend properly what is being done or is being reported from fields of study just beside his own, by biologists, astronomers, or chemists, though their work parallels or is tangent to his. Some of you may recall that Robert Oppenheimer, in a series of lectures which he gave in London for B.B.C., described this lonely predicament of the modern man of science. Communication between men of science concerning the newest works, even between men of comparable interest and rank, becomes increasingly difficult and broken. Finally, under these conditions, when men of science are embarrassed by intellectual isolation, it may be readily understood with what difficulty and mischance, the impulses, ideas and concepts of science are transmitted from the laboratory to the layman and to the beginning science student. A Critical Public

Question

This suggests to us one of the most critical public questions of our day. We cannot turn our backs on science and escape into another age. By what means, then, shall we organize, control, and disseminate for public use, all the new knowledge of this era of science and invention— so that perishable, precious knowledge may be conserved and not lost; so that scholars and their associates in technology may have quick, sure access to the data and ideas of science; and so that the rest of us, including particularly each oncoming generation of young people in the schools and colleges, may look to the right places for the knowledge we must learn to use and without which our young people cannot make their first beginnings in the new, exciting, and fruitful disciplines of science and technology? L ibraries and

Self-Education

Our college and university students of tomorrow are your students of today. On your shelves and on the tables where your magazines and periodicals are spread, they will find or they will miss the first clues to life-long reading. For one, it may be a piece of science fiction; for another, a simple but sound and captivating statement of a basic

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truth which may be studied, examined, turned over, and laid away in the mind for future use; or for a third, it may be the personal history of a man or a woman who from small beginnings went on to great and memorable accomplishments. We must never underestimate the intellectual quality of our young patrons. They may be teaching themselves more than their instructors can teach them. I think of a young lady named Joyce Myron who at the end of her Freshman year in Drexel entered into one of the grueling TV competitions, the 64 Thousand Dollar Question, and amazed her teachers by the expertness with which she met and answered, week after week, profoundly difficult questions about nuclear physics. She knew what she had never been taught. She had read searchingly and with care, for years and at her own choice, the basic documents of a subject to which the minds of young people must be invited. I remember also with what rapt attention a room full of high school juniors listened one evening to a talk on the spirit of research by Willis R. Whitney, founder and director of the research laboratories of the General Electric Company. He talked mostly about land turtles and water turtles as he had observed them in his holidays of many years. The boys could not have had a better demonstration of the spirit, methods, and judgment of the mind of a research scientist, nor a better illustration of what enjoyment comes from scientific curiosity. Just such curiosity about obvious things as any bright boy might have, he said, was the essential quality of a scientist. It was Whitney, as you may recall, who with one part-time assistant, working in an old barn at Schenectady, initiated a work of research for one industry which came to be emulated in every industry so that today billions of industrial dollars are appropriated annually in corporation budgets for research.

Important

Afterthoughts

Now, as I come to the end, I must confess that 1 have omitted saying what the articles and books loaned to me by the librarian should have prompted me to say on three subjects which I found very inviting: First of the three is the pressing need for recruits to the library services who can qualify for membership in the research teams of

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today. In a country which already spends $5 billion a year for research, there is bound to be a shocking waste of precious time and skill if we lack people who know how to select books, to classify them, to abstract what is in print, and to tell the investigator where to find quickly what he needs to know from what is in print. Laboratory research is one method of inquiry; literary research is the companion method. Second, I have not discussed the opportunity which the school and college librarian has to encourage in students such habits of selfeducation as have become indispensable to members of the new professions of science and technology. Third, I haven't mentioned the response by schools and students to that Traveling High School Library of Science of 200 books which has been put on the road by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundation. N o doubt you all know of this undertaking to stimulate student interest in science and to demonstrate what kinds of books related to science are most likely to catch the interests of students. These, however, are topics for papers or addresses by librarians who can speak to the topic with critical authority. My concern is only that of an educator. Best Tools of Civilization What I would have us all keep in mind is the proximity of the library to the laboratory, one relying upon the other. These, the Laboratory and the Library, are the two best tools of civilization in a day of science. Both are new tools; both of them are adaptable to a wide diversity of uses; each is complimentary to the other; and neither of them is yet completed nor yet entirely understood. In this age, as in any age ever studied by historian or archeologist, we may well measure our level of civilization by inquiring what tools we possess, to what state of perfection we have brought them, and what degree of mastery over our tools we have achieved.

IV Administration

Administration Ε.

C.

B O L M E I E R

E

*

should be established within the legal framework of public education. Then policy, as well as practice, would harmonize with valid statutory provisions and the provisions of the respective state constitutions and the federal constitution. If this were done precisely, and if everyone functioned entirely in accordance with the established policies, there would be no need for litigation in the area of public education. Of course no such ideal situation exists, at all times in all places. In rare instances policies are established which are obviously and knowingly in conflict with statutory and constitutional provisions. More often, however, the illegality of a school policy is caused by the vagueness or absence of an applicable statutory provision on a school issue. Even though a policy may be in harmony with a state law, the statutory provision itself might be in conflict with the state constitution, with the federal constitution, or with both. Consequently then the statute is unconstitutional and invalid, and the school policy VERY SCHOOL POLICY

* Professor of Education, Duke University.

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which is established in accordance with the invalid statute is likewise illegal. The legality of a school policy is perhaps most frequently challenged when it is based upon a general law which allows an undefined latitude of local school-board discretion. Obviously statutes cannot be so detailed as to stipulate and describe every specific act a school board may or must perform under any imaginable situation. Policies formulated by school boards have the force of law if they do not exceed or conflict with legislative intent. Sometimes certain individuals believe—or at least claim—that the board oversteps the boundaries of discretionary authority in formulating certain policies and regulations and performing other acts. The potential consequence is litigation. Contrary to the complaints of many, legislatures are not hampered greatly by the courts in enacting school legislation. Despite the courts' frequent condemnation or praise of certain school legislation, their actual rulings are generally based only upon the constitutionality of the statutes. A common statement in court decisions is that "the wisdom of the law is for the legislature to decide, not the courts." Likewise, boards of education—being agencies of the state—are not necessarily impeded by judicial interference in formulating school policies and regulations. If a school policy is made in harmony with statutory and constitutional provisions, and is reasonable, it will not encounter judicial opposition. Just one of many typical court quotations is illustrative: Boards of education, rather than courts, are charged with the important and difficult duty of operating the public schools. So, it is not a question of whether this or that individual judge or court considers a given regulation adopted by the Board as expedient. The Court's duty, regardless of its personal views, is to uphold the Board's regulation unless it is generally viewed as being arbitrary and unreasonable. Any other policy would result in confusion detrimental to the progress and efficiency of our public school system. 1 The most likely reason for a school policy being declared illegal is because of its opposition to statutory and constitutional intent. It follows therefore that if school officials gain a knowledge of school 1

Slate v. Marion County Board of Education, 302 S.W. (2d) 57 (1957).

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law, and apply that knowledge honestly for the welfare of the school, their policy making will not be impeded by the courts. Of course, with all the variable and ever-changing factors that are involved in school issues, there may be uncertainties as to the legality of certain school policies. With the differences of opinions of numerous individuals regarding legality of school policies it is not very likely the courts will go out of business for some time. Recent court decisions should serve as guides to school officials who are charged with the responsibility of formulating school policy. The closer the factors of a local school situation are related to those involved in a court case the more reliable will be the decision as a guide for policy making. Since every court decision on a school case is bound to affect a policy of some school to a certain degree, it would be well for school officials to review reported school law cases—particularly in their jurisdictions—to determine whether or not a school policy needs to be established or modified to conform with the decision, so that potential litigation might be avoided. It is not likely that different persons would select the same court cases to illustrate the effects court decisions might have upon policy making. Those which are briefly referred to here were selected because of their significance as well as recency. Case I. Barring married students from school attendance.—One of the present-day problems confronting school administrators is that caused by the recent influx of marriages of high-school students. The concern over this problem was clearly emphasized at the Fifth Annual School Law Conference at Duke University last summer where it was persistently discussed at several of the panels dealing with the "legal aspects of the administration of pupil personnel." Many of the school administrators participating in the discussion revealed that they had established policies and regulations—some of which were legally questionable—dealing with the problem. Others stated that they were in quest of a policy dealing with the problem which would be both legal and effective. A 1957 decision by the Supreme Court of Tennessee established a legal principle which may guide school policy on the issue. 1 There a school board adopted a resolution to the effect that any student who 1

State v. Marion County Board of Education, 302 S.W. (2d) 57 (1957).

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married during a school term was automatically expelled for the remainder of that term. An 18-year-old girl, who married despite the known regulation, was refused permission to attend school for the remainder of that term. Suit was then brought to have the young married girl restored to enrollment in the school so that she could graduate that year. The court, ruling in favor of the board action, held that the regulation in question "was neither arbitrary nor unreasonable under the facts disclosed." The court further emphasized that the question was a school administrative one rather than a judicial one. It should be pointed out in connection with this case that the court sustained the validity of the school-board resolution and the resulting action. Had there not been a written adopted policy on the subject prior to the marriage of the girl, there is some question as to whether denial to attend school would have been given judicial sanction—at least without first proving that this particular girl's presence in the school was causing a deterioration of school discipline and morale. Case II. School-board discretion in selecting school sites.—Numerous cases come before the courts in which the school board's policies in selecting school sites are challenged. The courts have been consistent in declaring that school-board action in such matters is entirely legal and final if not in conflict with statutory and constitutional provisions, and if made in good faith. Charges of discriminatory school-board action in selecting a school site took on a new slant in a Pennsylvania case. 1 It was alleged that the school board was effecting by gerry-mandering, a discriminatory school system based on segregation by race. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied relief sought. Plaintiffs appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court decision. The court found that plaintiffs "bottomed their case squarely on the issue that they have been discriminated against and segregated because of race by the proposed location of the new junior high school." It was emphasized that "unless this issue be proved, a U.S. Court has no authority to intervene in a domestic difficulty as to where a school should be located in a township. The location of schools assuredly is one for state school authorities and local school 1

Sealy v. Department

of Public Instruction of Penn. 252 F. (2d) 898 (1958).

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boards; for state, not national courts, unless there be a deprivation of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth A m e n d m e n t . " It appears that after the allegation of racial discrimination was "thrown out of the window" the plaintiffs did not have a legal "leg to stand o n . " The court recognized that the school board actually took into account many factors in determining the school site. With forthcoming movement in disegregating the public schools, it is possible that more cases alleging racial discrimination by way of selecting school sites, as well as redistricting, will come before the courts. If the school board's policy is one of maneuevring and subterfuge for the purpose of nullifying the 1954 U.S. Court decision, it would probably be declared illegal. If, however, the policy is established with a manifestation of good faith and with a proper exercise of administrative judgment, it would in all likelihood win judicial sanction. Case III. Dismissal of school personnel without recorded just cause.— Dismissal of school personnel always constitutes an area for litigation. Since statutory and constitutional provisions vary among the states, the legality of a dismissal would depend upon the laws of the particular state in which the dismissal occurs. In another Pennsylvania case, 1 it was shown that in dismissing a supervising principal it is necessary to show just cause for the dismissal. Moreover, such cause should be recorded in the minutes of the board meeting at which time action for the dismissal is taken. The reported facts of this case indicate that plaintiff was duly elected supervising principal of Luzerne Township School District. After performing the duties of his post for one year the plaintiff was suspended and the position abolished. After the plaintiff's exceptions to the dismissal of his complaint were overruled, the defendants, on their own volition, reinstated him as supervising principal. However, they refused him compensation for the period of his suspension. For this reason the plaintiff appealed and the judgment of the lower court was reversed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court found that since the school directors have the authority to employ a supervising principal they also have the right to abolish the position, "but only for the causes set forth in the code 1

Alberts v. Carofalo, 142 A. (2d) 280 (1958).

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and in the manner prescribed therein." The record indicated that conditions for which the code permits abolishment of a position did not exist at the time of suspension. The decision of the higher court was that "the suspension was unlawful," and that therefore the plaintiff was entitled to compensation for the suspended period. School boards would be seriously handicapped in the performance of their functions if they could not abolish positions under certain conditions. Those conditions, however, should be clearly written into the statutes. It follows, therefore, that a dismissal should be based upon a cause authorized by statute, and that the cause be stipulated in the minutes of the board meeting as a reason for the dismissal. Case IV. Limits of Municipal control over school matters.—Municipal agencies or officials frequently assume the authority of state agencies or officials in performing state functions. This has been particularly true in the matter of determining school sites. Courts generally rule, however, that such assumptions are false. In a California case, 1 the District Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court in denying a city the power to prevent a school district from exercising its right of eminent domain in acquiring a school site. The facts of this case indicate that a school board initiated eminent domain action, in which it sought to condemn approximately nine acres within the corporate limits for school purposes, which property was zoned for residential uses only under the municipalities comprehensive zoning plan. The Court recognized that a section of the Education Code provides that the Governing board of a school district before acquiring property for a new school site shall "give the planning commission . . . notice in writing of the proposed acquisition." In turn, the planning commission must submit "a written repoit of the investigation and its recommendation concerning acquisition of the site." In making its decision the Court concluded "that while the local planning commission may recommend concerning the location of a school site the ultimate determination of the site is in the school board . . . the city has no right to zone against the district's right of location." Frequently municipal building committees, school advisory committees, and other groups are in a position to gather and present facts to a school board which may be helpful in making a decision in 1

Town ofAtherton v. Superior Court, 324 Ρ (2d) 328 (1958).

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selecting a school site, initiating a bond election or on some other school matter. It would be sound policy for a school board to co-operate with such groups in getting pertinent information and even recommendations for school board action. It should be understood by all concerned, however, that such bodies act in an advisory capacity only, and that decisive action must be taken by the school board. Case V. Legality ofpupil placement acts. Since the School Segregation Cases, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1954 and 1955, ten states have enacted school placement or pupil assignment laws in various forms. Although some of them might have been designed to nullify the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, no intellectually honest person would deny that those laws were passed in an effort to meet and solve problems presented by the School Segregation Cases. As was to have been expected, the constitutionality of pupil placement and assignment laws enacted since 1954 have been challenged in Federal District Courts. The most recent of such cases is reported in the August 11, 1958, Federal Supplement} It is an interesting and significant case and should be read in its entirety by everyone interested in the problem. Presumably the Alabama School Placement Law furnishes "legal machinery for an orderly administration of public schools by admission of qualified pupils upon a basis of individual merit without regard to their race or colour." The court held that the act was "not unconstitutional on its face." This phrase is very significant and it appears in several of the decisions of pupil placement cases. A law which is "constitutional on its face" is not necessarily constitutional in its application. In this connection the court said, "In seeking an injunction on the ground that the Alabama School Placement Law is unconstitutional on its face as contrasted with being unconstitutional in its application, the plaintiffs have assumed a heavy burden indeed." In comparing the Alabama law with other state pupil placement laws which have been recently litigated, the court pointed out that the Alabama law was constitutionally quite different "on its face" than the laws of Louisiana and Virginia which were clearly designed to prevent any colored child from attending the same school attended by whites. The court found that in the Alabama case "the legal situation is 1

Shuttlesworth e. Birmingham Board of Education, 162 F. Supp. 372 (1958). Q.Q.A.E.-D

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more analagous to that in North Carolina, where the Pupil Enrollment Act was ruled to be not unconstitutional on its face in an opinion by the late great Chief Justice Parker." In conclusion a quotation from the opinion written by Chief Justice Parker follows. It not only suggests proper school policy and action pertaining to pupil placement laws, but to many other school administrative problems. Somebody must enroll the pupils in the schools. They cannot enroll themselves ; and we can think of no one better qualified to undertake the task than the officials of the schools and the school boards having the schools in charge. It is to be presumed that these will obey the law, observe the standards prescribed by the legislature, and avoid the discrimination on account of race which the Constitution forbids. Not until they have been applied to and have failed to give relief should the courts be asked to interfere in school administration. 1 1

Carson v. Warlick,

4 Cir., 238 F. (2d) 724 (1956).

Professional Organizations

and

the Present Scene in Education D. W I L L A R D

ZAHN*

Y

ou H A V E I N V I T E D me to make a few remarks which relate professional organizations of educational personnel to the current scene in education. It seems appropriate, therefore, at the outset, to take a quick look at the current scene. Perhaps my look will be too quick, perhaps a bit binocular, perhaps not sufficiently microscopic and penetrating. Realizing that every age of decision invites its own special emphasis and that all the basic ingredients of any age exist in greater or less degree in every age, may I say this.

The Current

Scene

The current scene in education is dominated by the effects of Sputnik, no matter how hackneyed that expression has become, nor how often it has been used to establish a varied pattern of relationships. As a matter of fact, our nation, including our educational systems, has * Dean, Teachers College, Temple

University.

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been dominated by fear, superinduced by the anxiety that somehow or other we may be destroyed. It is my thesis that fear does the same characteristic things to nations, local communities, and small groups that it does to individuals. This fear is not something new; it has been developing for some time. Perhaps it is, like so many fears, the product of a sense of guilt. There may have been the manufacture of a series of defense mechanisms. Is it the result of national introspection, heightened by superior communication media such as we never had before? Was the cult of "McCarthyism " something else, or was it fear crying in the dark ? So when our smugness got a jolt about a year ago, the thousands of fearsome words became millions and we all sought refuge and a way out. It was natural, therefore, that this fear became symbolized in most aspects of American life. Educationally the symbols that manifested it were found in emphatic emphasis on the sub-conscious educational thinking that many persons had indulged in previously. Thus they burst forth with theses that were variants of these feelings. Our intelligent children are not getting adequate education either in amount or quality. They are being guided by mediocre teachers who have no real knowledge of how the gifted and superior children operate. (There is no question that there is a strong element of truth in this symbol.) The high schools have been dominated by a soft pedagogy, pilltaking, easy-medicine philosophy that has left most of our children the prey to getting something for nothing, refusing to work for their education, with inability to concentrate on meaningful tasks, and the desire to get away with whatever they can in order to achieve their objectives. Organizations, including educational organizations, are dominated by mediocre individuals whose chief function in life is to establish status and to attain position rather than to improve themselves in the interests of better service. Every person who has spent from five days to a month in Russia now appears to become eligible for speeches of interminable length on the Russian scene. That these are forced on these individuals by the present pressure of society is quite obvious. That these individuals admit the general superficiality of their observations and plead that

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their "findings" be only tentatively accepted makes little difference to their audiences. O u r failure to win the satellite race is ascribed quite simply to the ineffectiveness of our educational systems despite the fact that most people know very well that there is no easy answer nor is there any single basic effect that is produced by any one cause. N o r d o they see science as a totality; Sputnik is all! Our society demands the exclusion of frills in education to a larger degree than has been evident at any time since the depression. The pointed and pungent writings of certain self-styled or generally recognized specialists in interpretation of the American scene have achieved so much acclaim and support that the failure on the part of educational authorities to establish a real educational philosophy for the American people is taken for granted by many. At least, the failure to have such a philosophy known to the people at large is quite evident. These and many other symbols make it necessary to ask, if we assume that this fear exists, " W h a t is this likely to d o to professional educational organizations ?" The answer to this is largely a matter of opinion and of controversy. However, if the thesis of similarity between individuals and groups is at all tenable, we can see in the attitudes of fear-obsessed individuals that which could become characteristic of their groups: the magnification of trivia, running for cover, seeing things that don't exist, feeling that somebody or something is going to get you, denying reality, seeking the couch, and the whole host of unrealistic dodges in which humans have indulged themselves. 1 η any case, it behooves the professional organizations to look at themselves fairly squarely, to shake off some of the old routines, to become creative in the face of crisis, and to emerge successful in their quest for professional development and for professional leadership in the American educational scene. If, therefore, the professional organizations were once good, the present motivation must demand that they be better. If they were developing a certain pattern of leadership in the past, they must develop a superior pattern for the future. If they were having influence on the creation of democratic values and ideals that were acceptable in the past, they should work at developing such values to an almost religious intensity for the future.

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For the Consideration of Professional

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Organizations

Permit me to note briefly a few suggestions as guides to action and direction for professional educational organizations. ACHIEVE A WIDER SOCIAL OUTLOOK

Is it correct to state that a considerable number of professional educational organizations have become more and more crimped in the scope of their interests ? Have they not crawled into the shell of educational practices and trivia rather than expanded their thinking toward broad social outlook and the basic purposes of education in a society ? Is it not true that their interests have been directed more toward how to teach Johnny to read; or to assert with emotional emphasis that he really can and does; how to conduct workshops in this or that; what administrative practices offer best solutions; rather than in giving direction to the long-range permanent values inherent in the implementation of an adequate educational philosophy ? We are not stating that these things are without value, but that the degree of emphasis has become one-sided. DECREASE ADMINISTRATIVE DISTANCE

I refer here to the "distance" from the field to the front. Many of you operate in administrative capacity. The decreased ratio of early middle age and middle age to youth, the pressures of final responsibility in decisioning, the increased emotional tensions of the present scene, higher qualifications, demands of public relations, and other equally weighty elements in the job thrust on leadership cause us all to indulge the tendency to neglect the development of personal relationships and the art of graciousness that was once helpful in binding us to our associates at whatever authority level they functioned. Likewise some professional organizations have created oppositional gaps between those of administrative position and those who merely have not yet reached that goal, despite their learning and yearning. So, build short cuts and bridges in attitude and direct communication that will serve to lessen administrative distance! ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION THAT IS ACTIVE AND GENUINE

Let each organization examine the real reasons for its existence, its

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operational set-up, the way it functions, and the quality of the participation of its members. Does a relatively small group of persons actually perpetuate their own status interests? No matter how it came to be, is there star-chamber operation ? After all, leaders and program are the life blood of an organization. Let them take a look at their present programs. Are they the same year after year in general design? Does the program encourage merely listening, passive participation? BROADEN THE BASE OF OUTLOOK

Essentially here the problem is to keep local-mindedness in perspective while conceding the necessity of world-mindedness and even the forward look to inter-planetary-mindedness, for the time is not far ahead when we may be comparing the life on our planet with the civilizations and threats, indeed, of other planets. If there is anything at all in the possibilities of space travel, this is the logical necessity. Many things that have been called "crazy" on their inception, now exist and are acceptable. GET RESEARCH MINDED

When you consider what opportunities have been neglected in the field of educational research, you begin to see why education is merely en route toward professionalization, reaching out ever so vaguely for that elusive status. Philosophically, leaders have cried in the wilderness, "Develop the attitude of critical thinking"; "Pattern on the scientific method." Despite this administrators and teachers alike have been content to regard slavish adherence to a single text as good education, to call "question-answer" education and memoriter learning quite satisfactory for almost all classroom purposes. Of course, research in education is not much more than a half-century of age, but imagine where we could have been if each city of 100,000 population in the United States had since 1920 been able to develop even one single, validated, professionally controlled research study per year. I am referring, of course, not to the statistical tables covering acceleration and retardation, age-grade tabulations, and those other necessary routine measures, but rather to those studies which contribute to growth in the science of education. In genuine research the surface has been hardly scratched.

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ENGAGE IN PIONEERING—OPEN UP EDUCATIONAL FRONTIERS

Generally speaking, the professional educational organizations have not been interested in pioneering. Yes, some have, but largely their concern has been over adaptations and refinements of ideas already conceived, in the protection of vested interests, and in the improvement of the welfare status. Perhaps the creative and pioneering expression might do more toward improving professional status than any other single factor. Obviously, this is linked to research interests and needs. Is this concept worth examining? EXERT CONSTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Very few professional organizations, except those whose direct concern are with higher education, have taken a clear look at it. What influence, for example, have the thousands of master's degree candidates had on the quality of teaching in the average college? The college teacher, like few other persons, stands at the bar of student opinion. He has a large measure of protection—and rightly so—in accordance with the established tenets of academic freedom. But student opinion, maturely conceived and properly formulated, is the key to improving quality and greater effort to be productive both in and out of the classroom. Moreover, graduate students have been very content to accept mediocrity in teaching either because they cannot specify what is good or bad or because they regard their own achieved grades as the only thing of real concern. In any case, the effect of the student on higher education can be considerable; its functions all too rarely to be either visionary or constructive; it is too frequently emotional and selfish. Is there not room for some kind of professional co-operation here ? (Now this statement may have overtones that appear highly critical of what has been achieved by professional organizations. Not at all, for they must perceive, as individuals usually do, that they are on the road, too—going somewhere, reaching destinations, planning new ventures.) FINALLY, CONCENTRATE ON VALUES

In this relation, I quote from Chapter V, of Project Report V, the Rockefeller Report, as follows:

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With rare exceptions, it is probably true that a society only produces great men in those fields in which it understands greatness . . . The kinds of greatness which our society produces over the years ahead will be the kinds of greatness we inspire, and will have to be rooted in our values. The report goes on to be critical of our society in having developed the "citizen-as-consumer" grip on the national imagination. It states about this citizen-consumer: He must be constantly and ingeniously served milder cigarettes, softer mattresses, and easier driving cars. If his dollars are to continue flowing, he must be endlessly catered to, soothed, annointed, protected, healed, cajoled, and generally babied. Add to this the fact that we get on with our national life through the mediation of representatives, agents, or delegates of various sorts . . . (who) are all committed to protecting and nourishing the interests of those by whose sufferance they hold their posts. It is their professional role to be selfish for their constituents, to defend them from incursions on their comfort and convenience. What has happened to the thing once called "intellectual autonomy?" You may have read the report and conceived its underlying significance. Towards its close, it echoes something that has been said over and over, "that development of the individual's potentialities occurs in a context of values." So also will the professional organizations find realization within a context of values — values which, by and large, they will choose for themselves. Some organizations will be fear-driven; others will choose their context of values wisely and well, but it is likely that the immediate future will be a time of most difficult decision, for which many organizations are prepared better than they know, for devotion, their considerable stock in trade, will decide many issues favorably.

V Teaching Modern Languages

Teaching Modern KENNETH

Languages

MILDENBERGER*

T

HE RAPID SPREAD of modern foreign language study in American elementary schools is dramatic evidence that increasing numbers of school administrators, boards of education, teachers, and parents realize that languages are a vital national resource. We live in an age when the international responsibilities of our country press in upon us from all sides. As the world's population expands rapidly, as former colonial peoples struggle to achieve political dignity and economic security, as technology shrinks distances and creates weapons of war too powerful to contemplate, as the free world continues in daily far-flung contention with the Communist world, our nation, which we like to think of as the most powerful, the most advanced, and the most righteous— increases its commitments everywhere on earth. But it is important that we Americans always remember that these responsibilities and commitments are not the private concern of a few hundred or thousand people in Washington. For our nation is a

* Associate Secretary of the Modern Language Association and Director of the Foreign Language Programme.

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democracy, and all of our citizens in every city and town and home, in all stations of life, all carry a share of the international burdens o f our nation. There are some 3,000 different languages and dialects spoken by the peoples of our planet, some by great numbers, others by mere thousands. English has 275 million native speakers; Chinese, in its various dialects, a half billion or more. Russian and Hindustani are each spoken natively by 150 million. There are thirty-eight languages, besides English, each of which is spoken by at least 10 million people; a dozen are each native to more than 50 million. These are the peoples of the earth, and the future of our nation and of the free world will depend upon the ability of large numbers of our future generations to speak with some of them, or at least to appreciate their differentness as merely that—not as queerness or as cause for suspicion. The state of our national linguistic unpreparedness has been much publicized recently in the newspapers and magazines. Only history can say whether we are already too late in awakening to the critical importance of languages. Today our leaders have been awakened, and it remains for American education to implement this awareness. Hardly a month has passed since President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act of 1958, passed by the Eighty-Fifth Congress. Much in that epochal bill was subjected to bitter argument in Congress; but the strongest provisions in the bill, always heavily supported and, indeed, enlarging and broadening with every revision of the bill, were those which offered support for the development of the teaching of modern foreign languages from elementary to graduate school. Our Federal Government has now given us the financial means for effecting considerable improvement, if we in education are ready to undertake this task. I shall return to the Federal Education Act later. What I have been saying may seem to some a wandering f r o m my subject today. But I submit that it is dead center on the mark. F o r the fundamental, the prime, "possibility" of teaching a foreign language in the elementary school is that, if done effectively, it can be the key to our nation's linguistic frustration. Neurologists like Wilder Penfield and child specialists like Gesell and Ilg tell us that their observations indicate the best time in life to begin the learning of a spoken second language is in early childhood—before the age of ten, according to Penfield. The language mechanism is more plastic at a n early age, the

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children have a facility for mimicking accurately, and they have none of the self-consciousness about speaking a foreign tongue that is so characteristic of humans in adolescence and after. M a n y hundreds of teachers in elementary classrooms are finding this to be so, and thousands of children are reaping the benefits. Let us look more closely at some of these possible benefits. First, these children are equipping themselves with a functional foreign language while learning it in the most natural way—hearing it and speaking it, playing roles in it, experiencing it for what it is—the verbal expression of a people. This is how they learned their own language. Later on they will proceed to some explanations of the grammar they have already mastered through use, rather than prescription, and they will tackle reading and writing only after a working ability in conversation is attained. Secondly, they are building confidence in their language-learning ability. I cannot stress this too much. Most of our youth who, in high school or college, " t a k e , " as the saying goes, one, two, or even three years of a language, generally come away thoroughly humbled and chastened at what seems to be their own linguistic ineptitude. T o them a foreign language appears to be a fearful complex of irregular verbs, vocabulary lists, mysterious subjunctives, inexplicable idiomatic expressions, and so on—all cunningly devised to expose the ineptness of American students. But to the small child, a foreign language can be a perfectly natural thing, a personal means of expression which he can comprehend by ear and can speak as a means of actual communication. For him it is not a textbook of puzzles; it works, and he has made it work. This self-confidence will stand him in good stead later in life when he may need to gain a working acquaintance with a second or a third foreign language. Here is the importance of this outcome, for in the world that future generations face, who can say what array of languages one may have to master? A t least, the individual who has had an early and successful start with a first foreign tongue will not cringe at a new prospect. A third benefit lies in the possibility of developing in these children desirable attitudes towards foreigners If our nation is to succeed in its world responsibilities, we shall need an enlightened citizenry which feels respect for foreign peoples, be they politically large and powerful or small and primitive by our standards of progress. T o achieve such

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an attitude, the monocultural orientation of the individual must be dispelled. Certainly, it is valuable to demonstrate to the child that there are many countries and many diverse peoples on earth. But mere awareness is not enough. The child must grow used to foreignness as a quite natural thing in the world, and he must come to respect other peoples, their customs, aspirations, and problems, though he need not develop an admiration for these other peoples. I believe that the most effective educational path to such cultural relativism is by means of the study of a modern foreign language, which makes it possible to give the child the intimate experience of a single foreign culture by means of the very vehicle of that culture—the language. This can be especially effective with the small child, whose attitudes are still flexible. Now, what about " d a n g e r s " ? I have heard various dangers discussed—straining the education budget, crowding the curriculum, working the child too hard, and others. None of these various " d a n gers" is insolvable, and I believe that the possibilities of beginning a language in the grades are of such importance in view of the urgent national interest that solutions to all can be found readily enough, if indeed all of the obstacles that have been suggested by some are really dangers. I see just one paramount danger in this widespread interest to begin foreign language learning in the elementary school, and it is evident in far too many places. It is, plain and simply, teaching which is unqualified and ineffective. If you decide to provide language instructionin your elementary school, you must realize that you cannot simply list it in the curriculum, give some orders, and expect results, and you cannot install it automatically like a new drinking fountain. You must understand that the fundamental reason for starting a language early is to take advantage of the peculiar language-learning abilities of the child. If these abilities of the child are properly exploited, he will achieve facility in the tongue, attain confidence in his linguistic aptitude, and develop a desirable attitude toward the foreign people who speak that language and toward their culture. But in all this, the teacher is the essential factor. The teacher must understand children, must be adept in the special language-teaching methodology for children—and this is crucial—must have real proficiency in the foreign language. The greatest error we can make is to be satisfied with a mere token

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language program in the grades—and the consequences to our national interest can be dangerous to the point of tragedy. Unless the establishment of such a program is approached seriously and adequate learning conditions are created, one can hardly expect to achieve any of the bright possibilities I mentioned earlier. It is the teacher who is the heart and soul of language learning. Where are we to get these competent teachers? I have heard that question asked again and again for the past six years, and never has there been a satisfactory answer. But at last the time has come when we will be able to produce adequate numbers of competent language teachers for the grades. When the Eighty-Fifth Congress enacted Public Law 864 it authorized the United States Commissioner of Education to arrange, through contracts with colleges and universities, for summer institutes and regular session institutes (and here I quote directly from the law) "for advanced training, particularly in the use of new teaching methods and instructional materials, for individuals who are engaged in or preparing to engage in the teaching . . . of any modern foreign language in elementary or secondary schools." Congress has authorized up to seven and a quarter million dollars annually for these institutes. Any modern language teacher—or anyone preparing to teach a modern language—in public or private school may attend an institute free of charge. Furthermore, those who teach in or are preparing to teach in a public school will be eligible for a stipend of $75 per week for the period of his attendance at an institute, and he may receive an additional stipend of $15 per week for each dependent. We seem to be on the verge of a new era in language teaching. For if these institutes are properly staffed and operated, and if present language teachers, and those who are in preparation, take advantage of these institute opportunities, no school need have an ineffective language program.

The Teaching of Modern

Languages

in Secondary Schools A D O L P H C.

GORR*

T

has been assigned to me is one that is growing in interest and importance. Our modern methods of communication, transportation, and the advancement in the sciences have made the acquisition of foreign languages a necessity. Although I am teaching in college, allow me to say that I am by no means a stranger to secondary education, having myself taught languages there and having given a college course in methods of language teaching for future high school teachers. And though I am well aware that we have many modern approaches to language instruction, a statement made by the renowned German educator Herbart in his Pädagogische Schriften1 almost a century ago is still true today, namely, that practice and skill of the learner is of vital importance in language study. The teacher's presentation must be systematic and logical. A thorough and accurate study of the fundamentals of a language will give that confidence in writing and speaking a foreign language that is otherwise only HE TOPIC THAT

* Assistant Professor of German, University of Pennsylvania. 1 Johann F. Herbart, Pedagogische Schriften, Vol. II, p. 259, Langensalza: 1877.

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superficial. It is true, a language must be treated as "living" and the methods of approaching and teaching it must, as Otto Jespersen 1 said earlier in this century be "as elastic and adaptable as life is restless and variable." Yet that adaptability can only be gotten if the teacher is thoroughly acquainted with the language he or she teaches. Professor O'Shea of Wisconsin as early as 1907 in his book, Linguistic Development and Education, treats such important steps toward mastery and adaptability as a development of the child's vocabulary, the mastering of verbal forms, the mastery of reading and the meaning of words in one's own language as of importance in impressing the need of a foreign tongue. In that same spirit of Herbart and Jespersen, Professor Atkins of the University of London states that instruction should aim at: The cultivation of correctness and fluency in the spoken and written language. The cultivation of the capacity to read and appreciate the best literature in the language. The imparting of accurate information about the people and their land and in connection with their aims, he speaks of the value of exchange students, stating, for example, that a year in a French school will help to give an intimate knowledge of French conditions and ideas otherwise not obtainable. The use of direct conversation and realia will also aid in the acquisition of a limited vocabulary of words dealing with everyday life. Atkins, who has taught German for years, believes in the gradual and systematic introduction of new grammatical forms and constructions in learning a language, stating: " B o t h vocabulary and grammar must be assimilated in association with living subject matter. Language is not a series of abstract categories, empty moulds in which we pour our thoughts. The grammar of a modern language must be actively put to accurate use in writing and speaking . . . "Whatever method we pursue, there must be systematic work and hard work. It is humbug to pretend that language learning is play, and equal humbug to regard work as unpleasant." 2 This is important both for oral fluency and written correctness. 1 Otto Jespersen, How to Teach a Foreign Language, translated by S. Bertelson, p. 4, London: 1912. * Henry G. Atkins, The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in School and University, pp. 8, 68, 86, London: 1920.

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All this can only be implanted in the student by conscientious work on the part of the teacher. Professor Peter Hagboldt has stressed the gradual acquisition of these aims in editing his graded readers, and in his work Language Learning, Some Reflections from Teaching Experience he points out the importance of accuracy in language study. This requires patience on the part of the teacher and a readiness on his part not to overlook the problems of the individual student in the mastery of a foreign language. This is often not easy for the teacher. Professor Gullette 1 of Illinois writes "the diagnosis of student weakness and the preparation of differentiated assignments call for effort on the part of the teacher beyond that required by routine teaching" and later in the book, when he speaks of the importance of grammar in modern language instruction, he states: "It is essential in explaining grammar lessons, to assign a relative importance to each fact presented." "Though grammar is conscious analysis of linguistic structure" as Nelson Brooks states in Pre-service Training for Language Teachers, it is the one and only sound basis on which real fluency and accuracy rest. Language training should be started in the freshman year of high school. Our great mistake today is that the student does not take more than two years of a language. That is not sufficient time to acquire skill in a foreign language. It is a mere smattering, and at best can bring about an intermediate reading knowledge and a far from perfect oral ability. Educators today seem to feel that students should stay with a second or third foreign language over a longer period of years. Then, too, two foreign tongues should not be started in the same year, for in most cases this will cause confusion in the youthful minds. It is best to lay a foundation in one language, and after having a certain degree of familiarity with it, to go to the study of another. Especially since 54 per cent of secondary school graduates go on to some form of higher education and 83.6 per cent of our colleges today have a language requirement for the A.B. degree, it would seem well worth the trouble and effort to start acquiring a foreign language early, if only for academic reasons. But academic reasons are by far outweighed by practical reasons in this modern world of ours. Professor Parker 2 mentions tomorrow's foreign language needs in international under1

C. Gullette, Teaching a Modern Foreign Language, p. 20, New York: 1942. William R. Parker, National Interest and Foreign Language, pp. 16-51, 76-78, Washington: 1954. 1

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standing, the armed forces, the government, business, American society, and in the international exchange of persons. In 1915 of 1,294,000 high school students 40.6 per cent studied foreign languages. In 1949 of 5,400,000 students, 13.7 per cent studied foreign languages. Today 56.4 per cent of public high schools do not offer foreign language study. During World War I the foolish hatred of things German and with it the hatred of all things foreign caused twenty-two states to insist that no foreign languages be taught in high schools. Since 1955, world conditions have stimulated a greater interest in and appreciation for foreign language study. Russian is finding its way into secondary schools, showing that a language, even though difficult, will be studied if practical reasons warrant it. It is also still true that foreign influence in particular areas give preference to this or that foreign language. Polish, Italian and Modern Hebrew are offered in a few of our largest cities, and Scandinavian languages in parts of the Mid-West. Yet for cultural, business, and scientific reasons the study of French, German, Spanish, and Russian must find a definite place in our secondary school curricula. Our indifference to language study must be overcome if we are to deal effectively and directly with the people of Europe and Asia, who, by the way, study English extensively. Dr. Mildenberger states, 1 "Too many teachers lack speaking competency in the language they attempt to teach." If language teaching is to be effective in our secondary schools, it cannot be treated as a step-child. The teacher of a foreign language must be able to handle that language, have fluency in speaking it, and be accurate in writing it. The student cannot be expected to get his instruction from all sorts of audio-visual aids, with the teacher in the background. The teacher is the real imparter of knowledge, all other devices are secondary. Most important of all, is the competent instruction of a language by one who has a thorough knowledge of it. As fine as pointers and aids may be, they cannot supplant the ability and enthusiasm of the teacher. In teacher preparation it is important to give the teacher every opportunity to become fluent in the language he teaches. Foreign teacher exchange, intensive language instruction in summer 1 Kenneth Mildenberger, "The National Picture of Modern Foreign Language, in Modern Foreign Languages in the High School, Bulletin 16, pp. 42-49, Washington: 1958.

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institutes at home and abroad, and advanced courses in conversation and composition are important means of equipping the teachers of modern languages. In addition, courses in methods which stress attention to individual differences among learners and the selection of textbooks and other teaching materials are also needed. College language departments should also plan many occasions where a foreign language can be put to some use in extra-curricular activities, such as singing, reading, conversation, dramatics, and correspondence with foreign students. These activities should also be a part of a good high school program. To come back to Herbart: "Übung und Fertigkeit," practice and skill—if through practice skill is attained, our modern secondary school instruction will serve a useful purpose in a modern world where a knowledge of foreign languages is becoming an absolute necessity.

The Achievement The German WALTER

oj

Novelle SILZ*

I

important and valuable things, the German Novelle -/was misnamed at birth. "Die deutsche Novelle," like "die deutsche R o m a n t i k , " is a hybrid and misleading term, for it seems to identify with Romance culture a development that in its most significant phase is peculiarly German. Of this development I mean to speak this afternoon—in a necessarily summary manner, within the time-limits of a lecture. 1 The word looks French, but its origin is Italian (novella), and its basis is Latin: novus, " n e w . " The initial concept, then, is that of a novelty, a piece of news. The French "nouvelle" means both " n e w s " and a form of prose composition. Goethe in effect combined these two in a remark to Eckermann that has been piously quoted and quoted IKE SOME OTHER

* Gebhard Professor of German Literature, Columbia University. 1 For a more extended treatment, including interpretations of representative Novellen, the speaker would refer to his book, Realism and Reality. Studies in the German Novelle of Poetic Realism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954. 119

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again out of proportion to its actual value: "Was ist eine Novelle anders als eine sich ereignete, unerhörte Begebenheit?" (Gespräche, 31 January, 1827). If the Novelle were, as Goethe says, merely the account of an unheard-of event that has really happened, it could not be distinguished from an anecdote or a newspaper "scoop." It is the criticalness of the central event that matters, not its uniqueness or "Unerhörtheit." The plots of the greatest Novellen, like those of the greatest literature in general, are not dependent on sensational novelty, as Keller demonstrated. A brand-new newspaper item reminded him of one of the oldest of situations, and he wrote his Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe. Goethe's offhand "definition" does not begin to do justice to the highly organized and artistic Novellen that had already been produced in Germany by that time. He passed over this production rather indiscriminately when he went on to say that by his essential criterion, just quoted, a great deal of German writing that went by the name of Novelle was no Novelle at all. Goethe was speaking, one may say, as an 18th-century conservative. The German Novelle is distinctly a product of the 19th century. It is significant that neither the standard 18th-century work on aesthetics, Sulzer's Theorie der schönen Künste (1771-74), nor the authoritative dictionary of the time, Adelung's famous Wörterbuch (1774 ff.), mentions the word, and Sulzer admits it only in a Supplement in 1796 as "eine Erzählungsart der Franzosen." The formal history of the Novelle in Germany may be said to begin in the year just before that, 1795, with Goethe's Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten. This would seem to make Goethe the inaugurator of the German development; on closer view, however, he is only the completer, for Germany, of the older Romance development. The fact that most of the stories in his collection are of French origin seems to bear out Sulzer's characterization. Technically, moreover, the Unterhaltungen—the word can be translated both as "conversations" and as "pastimes"—are an imitation of the Decamerone, a series of miscellaneous narratives ranging from mere anecdotes through "Schwanke" and "moralische Erzählungen" and ghost-stories to an outright "Märchen" as fanciful as any Romanticist could desire, all related for the entertainment and edification of an aristocratic company of people who have fled from war (as those in the Decamerone from the pestilence). In other words, a turning away

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from raw life and current problems in the interests of preserving the "Lebensform" of a cultivated, leisured upper class. Boccaccio's social " f r a m e " is retained, with all that this implies. Story-telling is still conceived as oral and social. Hence what is told must be novel, interesting, pointed, piquant, something to regale a circle of social peers. Amateurs take turns at story-telling. What is told must move within the bounds of this society's mores. It must be engaging, not too long, not too deep or elaborate, not too taxing or tragic. Plot, "doings," will tend to be more important than characterdrawing, personages to be recognizable social types rather than extraordinary individuals. To a sophisticated audience, the manner will be as important as the matter. At one point in Goethe's " f r a m e , " the leader of the group, a Baroness, defines the narrative code in just such terms. The subjects of your stories, she says, I leave entirely to your choice. But let the form of your treatment at least show that we are in good society. Give us to begin with a story with few persons and events, well invented and thought out, true, natural, and not vulgar, with as much action as is indispensable and as much moral conviction (Gesinnung) as is necessary, a story that does not lag, nor yet rush, that shows people as we like them to be: not perfect, but good, not extraordinary, but interesting and amiable. Let your story be entertaining as we listen to it, satisfying in its conclusion, and leave us a gentle stimulus to further reflection. 1 It is obvious that if the Novelle had operated within such restrictions of drawing-room decorum and timid "nothing in excess," it would never have become a m a j o r form of literature. And in justice it must be said that the best tales in Goethe's collection (Der Prokurator and especially the wholly original Ferdinand und Ottilie) transcend these limitations, deal with " G e s i n n u n g " and real ethical problems, and fulfill certain criteria of the later G e r m a n Novelle. Goethe does not, however, use that word here, and he seems neither at this time nor later to have fully realized the poetic potentialities of the genre. His characters, though somewhat more individuated than Boccaccio's, are still types, and the avoidance of tragic outcomes, the evident intent to amuse and instruct or improve the listener, indicate the dominant social orientation that aligns Goethe's stories with the past rather than the future of the German Novelle. 1

Goethes sämtliche Werke, Jubiläumsausgabe, Vol. XVI, p. 215.

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A generation later, after writing some miscellaneous tales to fill his Wanderjahre, Goethe published a prose work which he entitled simply Novelle to signalize its exemplary character. But I doubt that any competent critic would have called this a Novelle had Goethe not done so, nor paid much attention to it had it been the work of a lesser author. Happily, it remained without effect on the German development. It begins with promising realism, but ends in a mystical allegory which has given employment to many interpreters. It does not rise from the level of allegory to that of symbolism, which was to prove so fruitful a principle in 19th-century German literature, including the Novelle. It had indeed already proved so in the work of Heinrich von Kleist, whose career had run its tragic course years before this (Kleist died in 1811; Goethe's Novelle was published in 1828). Kleist and his works remained relatively unknown during his lifetime and long thereafter. Goethe failed to appreciate his genius. Goethe's and Tieck's and many later theorists' views on the Novelle took no special cognizance of Kleist. Not until the 20th century did literary historians realize what he had done for the Novelle a hundred years earlier. Not from any theoretical consideration but simply in the literary expression of his dynamic and tragic nature, Kleist burst asunder the bonds that had hitherto confined the Novelle, and opened it to the deepest problems of existence. He achieved an enlargement of the genre which was to prove permanent. He was not unaware of his predecessors, including Cervantes, but his intense and metaphysical temper inevitably led him both to concentrate and to expand the inherited form. He stripped away the conventions of Goethe's "gute Gesellschaft" as a standard for narration, and equipped the Novelle to venture out on the high seas of tragedy. Story-telling is for him no longer a form of sociability, a diversion "zum Nutzen und Vergnügen," or a "leichter Nachtisch," as Goethe's chief narrator in the Unterhaltungen called it. The social framework is discarded. When society is present in Kleist's Novellen, it is a far more problematical force than the ladies and gentlemen who listened to the tales of the Decamerone and the Unterhaltungen-,a social class has been broadened to humanity at large with its incalculable capacities for good and evil. The narrator of the older Novelle spoke for and to a defined and stable society. Kleist focuses intense light on the detached modern individual,

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isolated, endangered, tragically exposed in a world of baffling appearances, a "gebrechliche Welt" "auf die nur fern die Götter niederschaun." Kleist voices the "Lebensgefühl" of the new generation; Goethe speaks for the old. Kleist's entire production occupies a few years well within Goethe's novellistic beginnings and endings. Yet Goethe's work in the main constitutes the culmination, in German dress, of the older Boccaccian type of Novelle, while from Kleist stems the specifically German form which reached its finest flowering in the middle and later 19th century. Kleist's immediate effect, however, was slight, and the trend of the times was not such as to carry forward his revolutionary achievement. The prevailing mood of German Romanticism was lyrical rather than epic or dramatic, and it inclined to the supernatural rather than the real. Hence its typical prose form is the "Märchen" of various modulations: weird in Tieck, fantastic in Hoffmann, lyrical in Eichendorff, allegorical in Chamisso. Such things are not Novellen by any valid definition, and German writers of today who invent ad hoc classifications like "Märchennovelle," "Legendennovelle," and even "Romannovelle" to admit them to their compendious books simply show an insufficient appreciation of the Novelle as a form of high literary art. This form, as inaugurated by Kleist and developed by the great masters—and defined by eminent theorists—of the ensuing century, has distinct bounds and criteria which set it off from other genres of prose narration. For one thing, pertinent especially to the Romantic period, the Novelle operates entirely in the world of reality. It may, and even with Kleist does, occasionally use the supernatural for "atmosphere" or symbolical effect, but never to the extent of determining the plot and outcome. Authors who confound the real and unreal worlds in their stories are apt to lose the poetic values of both. Paraphrasing a famous line of Goethe's, one might say: "ohne Beschränkung keine Meisterschaft." Recourse to the supernatural violates the artistic boundaries of the Novelle. To an uninitiated English-speaking person, "Novelle" might suggest a short novel, a novelette. But the difference between novel and Novelle is not simply one of length—as Wieland in his time complacently assumed—it is a difference in inner organization. The Novelle is compactly organized around one central event and conflict,

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wVhereas the novel comprises a whole series of them. The Novelle ddoes not give a full and detailed picture of an age or a lifetime, but cconcentrates on a crucial turning-point in the life of its hero. It can shhow the form and pressure of the times only by way of suggestion or syymbol, never in elaboration. The Novelle has few characters and no extensive description of peersons or landscapes. Economy of means is one of its chief virtues. AV few traits of speech or behavior suggest a complete portrait. We feeel that we know what Michael Kohlhaas looks like, but he is nowVhere described. Milieu in Kleist is reduced to virtual stage-directions. Mlörike in his Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag limits himself to one däay, one imagined episode in the composer's life, one of his musical wvorks; yet through this window, as it were, we see the whole man and hiis cultural setting. The art of the "Novellendichter" lies in the selecticion and presentation of the most eloquent features from the great sttore which life and his imagination offer. His ideal impersonation is D)ante, the fastidious artist, as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer shows him at t work in Die Hochzeit des Mönchs: "Seine Fabel lag in ausgeschütteter Fülle vor ihm; aber sein strenger Geist wählte und vereinfaachte." Focusing on a crucial moment in the hero's life, the Novelle can, b)y a series of "flash-backs" and anticipations, suggest his entire lifesppan, or, as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff does so brilliantly in Die Jüudenbuche, give us a complete biography through a succession of kaleidoscopic pictures. The timing, the pace of the Novelle is tenser, faaster than that of the novel. It often departs from the rational, chronological order as it presses on toward the climax with dramatic urgency. 0 ) r it starts with the end-situation and then shows how this came to be. It t has not space for the gradual unfolding of a character, but instead it ppresents in most cases an already fully developed character who is teested in the fire of an unforeseen and catastrophic event. In the ar-mpler time-allowance of the novel, such an event would be led up too by stages; in the Novelle, it is apt to fall like a bolt from the blue. Itt is apt to bring to the surface a hitherto submerged side of the hero's chharacter and fundamentally alter his life. A man can be a model ciutizen up to his thirtieth year and then be turned by a seemingly trrifling incident into a public menace on a large scale: one of the most uppright and most frightful men of his time, as Kleist calls Kohlhaas in

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his opening sentence. Thus the Novelle gains an aspect of irrationality, fatality, and tragic paradox which is in turn enhanced by its predilection for striking and singular cases of human experience. The novel tends to deal with the representative man, the Novelle with the extraordinary man. The " h a p p y ending" that is such a stock feature of novels is not normal for the Novelle; it is much more likely to end tragically. In compass and in some other respects the Novelle stands between the novel and the anecdote. The latter is doubtless a kinsman and probably the rudimentary ancestor of the Novelle. Etymologically "anecdote" means something unpublished, hence a tidbit of novelty, conforming to Goethe's definition of "eine unerhörte Begebenheit." But a mere isolated happening, however unique, would not make a Novelle; it would be matter for an anecdote, or at its barest for a newspaper item. Fact is not necessarily truth. The happening must be made (and be such as can be made) to symbolize, in a singular case, a significant truth about human nature and behaviour. Hebbel's formulation " a n der singulären Erscheinung das Unendliche veranschaulichen" holds true for all art, and particularly for the Novelle with its inherent tendency toward symbolism. The anecdote concentrates on a happening to the exclusion of characterization and motivation. It usually claims no higher literary value, but wants to strike the reader or auditor, make a point and, in most cases, "get a laugh" and get it quickly. In the hands of Kleist, or a conscious modern artificer like Wilhelm Schäfer, it can have characterizing force, but it lacks the substance and depth of the Novelle. Kleist's tale Das Bettelweib von Locarno, which has often been treated as a Novelle, is rather an "Anekdote," just because it lacks characterdrawing in depth or adequate motivation of its final horrors. Some of the stories in the Decarnerone and in Goethe's Unterhaltungen are not more than anecdotes. One could expand the anecdote into a brief story and still not get a Novelle. The German short-story or "Kurzgeschichte," in the main a 20th-century importation from the United States, has not been a serious competitor for the Novelle. It has some native forerunners in the older anecdotes and "Schwanke" and "Kalendergeschichten," the staple of periodicals and newspapers and Almanacs. It caters to the hurried modern reader who wants a story in one gulp and who needs

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to be impressed by "punch" and a surprise ending. Its journalistic associations are usually evident, and it has not the weight and poetic quality of the Novelle—though it doubtless has a better future in Germany. Curiously enough, the Novelle has a deep inner kinship with types of literature which the superficial observer would never connect with it, because of their difference in outward form: the drama and the ballad. It is surely no accident that Kleist, the greatest dramatist of his age, was also its greatest "Novellist." We know from eminent examples that plays can be made out of novellas, and there have been elaborate attempts to rewrite Novellen {Michael Kohlhaas and others) as plays. The leading "Novellendichter" later in the century: Heyse, Keller, and Meyer, were men of dramatic accomplishments or ambitions, and Storm, though he never turned his hand to plays, did entertain the possibility. And Storm proudly proclaimed that the Novelle was the epic peer of the drama and had taken over its torch in the literary race. Both the Novelle and the drama are built around a central conflict to which the action rises and from which it falls to the catastrophe. Both demand a clearly defined plot, and everything is bent toward the advancement of it. The Novelle-writer tends to compress his action into scenes on a virtual stage, and he tends to take the dramatist's objective attitude toward his persons. It is this dramatic objectivity and tension that one feels in the greatest Novellen of the 19th century, in place of the epic impartiality and relaxed narration of the older stories. This feature was emphasized by Theodor Storm when, in 1881, he expressed his conviction that the Novelle had come of age and was capable of handling subjects of the first magnitude. The Novelle, he declared, "is no longer, as it once was, 'the condensed representation of an event arresting through its unusualness and marked by a surprising turning-point'; the Novelle today is the sister of the drama and the strictest form of prose literature. Like the drama it treats the deepest problems of human life; like the drama it requires for its accomplishment a central conflict with reference to which the whole is organized, and in consequence of this the most compact form and the exclusion of everything non-essential; it not only tolerates but sets the highest demands on art." 1 1

Theodor Storms sämtliche Werke, ed. Köster, Vol. VIII, p. 122.

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The Novelle has in the field of prose fiction virtues and advantages similar to those of the ballad in the field of verse narrative. Both are definite yet flexible in form. Both can, without losing their essential character, borrow from each of the traditional genres: they can at need be epic and dramatic and lyrical. They tell a story, often in key scenes and dialogue, with dramatic tension and propulsive action that centers upon a critical happening; yet they can create emotional moods and subtly convey the author's own feeling while maintaining an objective attitude. Novelle and ballad leave much unsaid and do not give all the intermediate steps; they exhibit the "Sprunghaftigkeit" which Herder found in the folksong. They imply much through symbolism. They are characterized by artistic economy and brevity, even laconism. A number of distinguished Novellen have originated in ballads. When we compare Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Judenbuche with her Tod des Erzbischofs Engelbert von Köln, it becomes evident that she uses in both the technique of a series of dramatic pictures with one or two foreground figures and dialogue, "Stimmung" and symbolic objects, terse characterization and cogent motivation, giving the "high points" only and leaving some things in the dark. The ethical problem of guilt and punishment is treated with equal impressiveness in both cases; retribution is remorseless, yet the author manages to communicate her personal compassion while sustaining the hard, cold objectivity of her story with consummate skill. It is worth noting that Schiller's ballads have been described as "Vers-Novellen" and that in the finest of them, Die Kraniche des Ibykus, a "typisch novellistische Linienführung" has been discerned.1 It treats essentially the same ethical question as Annette's ballad and Novelle; it centers about a crucial occurrence which befalls a mature hero; it has in the Cranes a weighted symbol comparable to the Beech in Die Judenbuche or the pair of horses in Kohlhaas; and it has the surprising turn and dramatic denouement of the typical Novelle. It may well be, as Helmut Rehder surmises, that the "neue, die Poesie erweiternde Gattung" which Goethe saw adumbrated in this ballad was none other than the Novelle.2 1

Johannes Klein, Geschichte der deutschen Novelle (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1954, p. 26. 2 Helmut Rehder, "Die Kraniche des Ibykus: The Genesis of a Poem," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. XLVIII (1949), p. 567.

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Of the various generic similarities and differences which we have considered, one or another was recognized by writers and critics during the course of the 19th century. As a German development, the Novelle has received its due share of the speculative thought with which the Germans are wont to accompany and justify their poetic production. The 19th century, which saw the essential evolution of the Novelle, also brought forth the most significant theory about it. There is very little Novelle theory of consequence in the 18th century, and there remained little for the 20th to do beyond systematizing and further refining the insights of the preceding period. Of late years, a tendency toward undiscriminating inclusiveness has obscured rather than clarified the outlines of the genre. Wieland, writing in the 1770's (in the second edition of his Don Sylvio), represents the effete Rococo age and its lack of a sense for the new narrative form. To Wieland the Novelle was only a diminutive novel, and his own Hexameron (1805) stands as an anachronism in the new century. Several years earlier, the bright young Friedrich Schlegel had contributed more original and advanced ideas in his essay on Boccaccio (1801). Though he concerns himself with older and foreign models (Boccaccio and Cervantes) and is evidently influenced by Goethe's recently published Unterhaltungen, Schlegel does in some points anticipate things to come. He still accepts a "feine Gesellschaft" as the social matrix and sophisticated entertainment as the social function of the Novelle. But he descries something like a subjectiveobjective polarity and a symbolical tendency in it: he finds it adapted "to represent indirectly and as it were symbolically a subjective mood and view," and "perhaps especially suited for this indirect and concealed subjectivity just because in other respects it inclines strongly to objectivity." He also credits the Novelle with a congenital disposition to irony, a quality that was to prove attractive to writers of a much later date. 1 August Wilhelm Schlegel, when he comes to discuss Boccaccio and the Novelle in his Berlin lectures of 1803-04, echoes some of his brother's views as to the social, indeed recreational aim of the Novelle, but also makes some perceptive remarks that point toward the future. The Novelle, he says, can run the whole gamut from serious, tragic 1

Friedrich Schlegel, Prosaische Konegen, 1906), pp. 411 ff.

Jugendschriften,

ed. M i n o r , 2. Aufl. (Wien:

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actions to sheer farce, but it must always be localized in reality (immer soll sie in der wirklichen Welt zu Hause seyn); hence it likes to be specific as to place, time, and names of persons. It must present man with all his weaknesses and vices, and life as it is, not ameliorated (veredelt). It has this in common with a play: it requires energetic action and decisive turning-points (entscheidende Wendepunkte) for the clear disposition of its material. 1 The concept of a "Wendepunkt" or turning-point, barely suggested in one of the tales of Goethe's Unterhaltungen, here clearly postulated by August Wilhelm Schlegel, was later amplified by Ludwig Tieck. Unlike the Schlegel brothers, Tieck was a practical producer. Not an original thinker like Friedrich Schlegel, he had the finest flair for what was original and fruitful in the thought of others and for what the changing times demanded. He had begun as a hackwriter of tales for the low-grade " A u f k l ä r e r " Nicolai, he had published nightmarish " M ä r c h e n " during the heyday of Romanticism, and he was one of the first to desert its grazed-over pastures for the greener fields of the new Realism. In his later, more realistic period, significantly at the time when he was most actively involved in the Dresden theater, Tieck published (1829) a discussion of the Novelle which (1) emphasizes the need for a sharp focus and center, (2) admits "das Wunderbare," now, however, no longer in the sense of Romantic miraculousness but of the baffling fortuitousness encountered in daily life, and (3) particularly emphasizes the "Wendepunkt": the point at which the story, Tieck says, reverses itself, quite unexpectedly and yet in keeping with factors of character and situation hitherto dormant, now revealed and released in a crisis. The Novelle, Tieck declares, admits of all colors and characters, but will in every case show this striking turning-point (jenen auffallenden Wendepunkt) which distinguishes it from all other types of narration. 2 In practice, Tieck's later Novellen backslide to Romantic miraculousness, and the realistic qualities of the best of them, Des Lebens Uberßusz (1839), are vitiated by its fairytale factors and solution. The lengthy discussions incorporated in it, however interesting for their ideas, violate the economy of the Novelle form. Tieck's so called 1

A. W. Schlegel, Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst. Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale, 19, pp. 245, 247 f. ' Ludwig Tieck's Schriften (Berlin: Reimer, 1828 ff.), Vol. XI, pp. Ixxxvi f. Q.Q.A.E.-E

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"Diskussionsnovellen"—an absurd and self-contradictory term—are a loquacious development of the "Unterhaltung" principle. Yet Tieck's theory, while it contained nothing really new, carried over the seeds of further development. More than a generation later there appeared in Paul Heyse another facile producer and theorizer whose work and effect in both fields are comparable to Tieck's. Heyse's voluminous production has been even more severely winnowed by time; yet he enjoyed for years a great vogue and influence, and he had a knack like Tieck's for formulating strikingly ideas by no means original with him. As Tieck set up the "Wendepunkt," so Heyse set up the "Falkentheorie." The Novelle, he begins by saying—in the Introduction to his great collection Deutscher Novellenschatz (1871)—deals with significant human fate in terms of conflict, showing up a fresh aspect of human nature by means of an unusual happening. It presents a specific case, sharply outlined within a restricted framework, just as the chemist must isolate the interaction of certain elements in his experiment to illustrate some law of nature. Here Heyse is looking back to Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften (a Novelle in origin), and he is also mindful of the scientific advances of the new age whose laboratory methods doubtless favored, as he suggests, the strict and "isolating" form of the Novelle. Heyse differentiates it from the novel: the latter embraces various concentric "Lebenskreise"; the Novelle confines itself to one such circle: "in einem einzigen Kreise einen einzelnen Konflikt"; and it can intimate only in "abbreviation" the general life beyond. It has an express individual character or "profile," "something peculiar, specific in its very makeup . . . a strong, definite silhouet." Like the tales in the Decamerone, it can be summarized in a few lines. From the story about the Falcon in Boccaccio, Heyse derives his desideratum of the "Falke" which becomes his special hallmark. Heyse thinks of it as the specific thing that differentiates a particular Novelle from a thousand others, that is, a striking object that identifies or tags the story in our minds. He does not in fact reach the concept of the symbol in Kleist's or Droste-Hiilshoff's sense, though later interpreters give him credit for this. He is actually stressing a feature of external form, not of internal organization. Heyse's friend Theodor Storm was not unduly impressed by this bird. Storm wrote to Keller (September 13, 1883): "Den Baccaccio-

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sehen Falken lasz ich unbekümmert fliegen." Thirty years before Heyse promulgated his theory, Storm had unerringly recognized "restriction and isolation" as the essence of the Novelle (letter to Brinkmann, November 22,1851). This form came natural to him. Storm was the " p u r e s t " of the German Novellists; he never essayed the novel or the drama. He was not a deliberate theorist, either; his proud pronouncement, quoted above, which sums up the progress achieved by the Novelle in the 19th century, was wrung from him by special provocative circumstances. Some fruitful discussion of the nature of the Novelle had been contributed at the mid-century by Friedrich Theodor Vischer, the leading German aesthetician of the time. He delimited the Novelle and the novel, comparing the former to a single beam and the latter to a whole flood of light. The novel, he pointed out, gives a comprehensive picture of the world, the Novelle only a segment of it, but one that with momentary intensity opens up a vista upon the whole. The novel presents a series of situations, the Novelle but one; the novel shows the complete evolution of a personality, the Novelle only a piece of h u m a n life; but this piece contains a tension, a crisis, a turning-point, and thus demonstrates with sharp accent the meaning of life in general. 1 In the closing decades of the 19th century, Friedrich Spielhagen, a prominent writer of social novels, added the last notable constituent to the theory of the Novelle by pointing out that whereas the novel deals with characters still developing and being affected by their milieu, the Novelle deals, in a brief action, with characters, few in number, who are already developed (fertig) and who, subjected to a crucial conflict, merely reveal or unfold their inherent natures. 2 It is worth noting that one of the earliest of these theoretical statements (A. W. Schlegel's) emphasizes the closeness of the Novelle to real life, and that one of the latest (Storm's) emphasizes its high and exacting art. These are two integral characteristics not only of the Novelle but of the literary ideal prevailing during the period when the Novelle reached its height in Germany. We call this period Poetic 1

Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Aesthetik, Stuttgart, 1857; 2. Aufl., ed. Robert Vischer (München: Meyer & Jessen, 1922-23), Vol. VI, pp. 192 f. 2 Friedrich Spielhagen, Beiträge zur Theorie und Technik des Romans (Leipzig: Staackmann, 1883), pp. 245 f.; and Neue Beiträge (ibid., 1898), p. 74.

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Realism, using a term of Otto Ludwig's. He did not invent the term, for it occurs already in Schelling, as we are informed by Richard Brinkmann in his recent book Wirklichkeit und Illusion (Tübingen, 1957, p. 3). What counts, however, is that Otto Ludwig developed this concept and established it for this period. Mr. Brinkmann'sbook tends to discredit the term "Realism," but after elaborate discussion arrives at no substitute for it. Like all such designations, it is far from perfect and can never be fixed with scientific exactitude. The world "as it is" is necessarily the world as it appears to us. And time is a flowing river in which all things merge and divisions and classifications are only hypothetically possible. As we observe and designate, we are ourselves being carried along by that river, and its shores, but now abreast, change shape as they recede. Thus different eras have different conceptions of what is "poetic" and what is "real." The harsh realities of today become the sentimental memories of tomorrow. The steam locomotive which, little over a century ago, seemed to late Romanticists to spell the end of all life's poetry, has in its turn become romantic, and its poetic noises are being affectionately preserved on phonograph records. In much less time, I suspect, the automobile will go the way of the stagecoach; for the rapidity of change has greatly increased. We have, nevertheless, a fair notion of what seemed reality to the age that we may still call Poetic Realism, the period that extended from the decline of Romanticism to the incoming of Naturalism, roughly f r o m about 1830 or somewhat earlier to the late 1880's. It emerged gradually from the realistic beginnings—not usually recognized—in Romanticism, and came to a more definable end with the Naturalistic "revolt." The most influential writers of Poetic Realism were born in the late years of the 18th century or the early years of the 19th. They were rooted still in that rich soil of " H u m a n i t ä t " and "Bildung" that underlay the "Goethe-Zeit," the Classic-Romantic Age, and that found its intellectual buttress in the unbroken development of German idealistic philosophy from Kant through Schelling. One might say that this "Kunstperiode" came to a close in the Napoleonic Wars, as the 19th century ended, not in 1900, but with the First World War. Politically, the imposition of the Metternich System in 1815, the Paris Revolution of 1830, the revolutions of 1848, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 marked the stations of a new and sobering development that carried far from the refined, cosmopolitan,

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and non-political culture of the Age of Goethe. The growth of political liberalism was a concomitant of Poetic Realism, and a liberal uppermiddle class, an enlightened "Bürgertum," formed the social background of both Poetic Realism and the Novelle. But already there were afoot forces which, as yet held in balance, were to accelerate with the century and cause the literary overturn before its end. The increase in population, the growth of cities and industry and the consequent beginnings of an urban proletariat, the extension of railroads (the first ran in Germany in 1835), the multiplication of magazines and newspapers, those great purveyors of ephemeral prose—these things were combining to change the literary scene and the reading public in radical ways. The turn of the natural sciences from the sporadic experiments and poetic speculations of the Romantic period to the precise, objective methods of the laboratory, the change in theology from the idealistic-mystical religiousness of Novalis and Schleiermacher to the skeptical-iconoclastic analysis of David Friedrich Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach, from spiritual "Jenseitigkeit" to sensualistic "Diesseitigkeit"; and in the new "Geschichtswissenschaft" the shift from the spacious philosophizing of Herder and Schiller to the exact study of documents and sources— all this was transforming the intellectual world that confronted the writers of the new period. Cold, hard realities, increasingly complicated and increasingly numerous facts were pressing upon them with an insistence that would not be denied and could not be dealt with under the old categories. Yet these men themselves came from a simpler, more idealistic era when poetry, philosophy, and science still lived in amicable partnership, when Friedrich Schlegel could declare a novel and a philosophical treatise (Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre) co-equal with the French Revolution as forces shaping the age. When these writers, thus conditioned, faced their world and undertook to express its meaning, what they brought forth was inevitably a blending and a compromise. They saw the world of fact more sharply than had any generation of writers before them, and they recorded it w ith a new accuracy. But they perceived it sub specie of their ClassicRomantic heritage of idealism. Man for them was still an individual, a whole specimen of "Menschheit." He was still rooted in Nature, not standing on a city pavement or living in a city tenement. He still plied

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a craft, he did not feed a machine. He was a "Halbkünstler." His calling was bound up with his personality and honor; the fact that he was a soldier or forester or carpenter or slater was part of his character; he was not a colorless employee, a number in a factory. This element of "Beruf" is of living importance in Poetic Realism, as is the link with "Heimat," region and countryside. The country village or town is the favorite locus of Poetic Realism, not yet the city with its rootless masses, as in Naturalism later on. Where the Naturalists professed to show things as they are, especially their sordid side, unretouched by any poetic purpose, the Poetic Realists, though they also, as Otto Ludwig urged, pictured "die Welt, wie sie ist," still held to Goethe's distinction between fact and truth, and did not believe that all things were equally important. They productively reconciled a heightened appreciation of real things with a conviction that real things stood for deeper poetic and spiritual verities. Their realism was selective; they did not wish to photograph life but rather to paint it, choosing features that spoke symbolically for meanings behind their mere surfaces. "True poetry," Otto Ludwig said, "must free itself entirely from the superficial present, from real reality, so to speak" (sozusagen von der wirklichen Wirklichkeit). 1 This is the doctrine of the higher reality of art, and it is not incompatible with the aesthetics of Schiller and Classicism. The facts of character, situation, and event, then, accurately observed and recorded, but filtered through an artistic consciousness, subordinated to an artistic design, given an artistic value—this is the creed of the Poetic Realist. His is a stylized realism, for he imposes standards of style and beauty on the actualities he perceives. His art is a compromise. But the amazing thing is that, with of course individual fluctuations, Poetic Realism maintained this compromise, this style, in rich production through two full human generations. It did so most successfully in the Novelle. The Novelle is the most modern and the closest to life of all the forms of literature in this century. It gradually outstrips the drama and the novel. After the great Classic-Romantic age, after the brilliant but still unrecognized accomplishment of Kleist, the major drama had reached a last height in Grillparzer and Hebbel. The increasing realism and Skepticism of 1

Otto Ludwigs gesammelte 1891), Vol. V, p. 411.

Schriften, ed. Stem and Schmidt (Leipzig: Grunow,

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thought, the incipient "Vermassung" of society, the dulling of the sense for eminence and heroism, found a more suitable outlet in a discursive prose than in elevated drama. It may be regarded as symptomatic that Otto Ludwig, for all his laborious efforts, did not gain a foothold on the stage, but behind his own back, as it were, scored successes in prose fiction. His characteristic over-elaboration prevented Zwischen Himmel und Erde from attaining the "Schlankheit," the trim lines, of a true Novelle, but its painstaking detail, its masterly psychological analysis showed which way the times were tending: this sort of thing called for narrative, not dramatic, expression. Richard Wagner owed his theatrical triumphs to his music. And Büchner, had he lived, might have proved a greater Novellist than playwright; certainly his Lenz would have been a prodigiously modern psychological Novelle. There was then good reason for Theodor Storm to declare (in 1881) that with the decline of the German stage and the shrinkage of its public the Novelle, as the leader of the prevalent "epische Prosadichtung" of the age, had taken over the task of the drama (Sämtl. Wke., ed. Köster, Vol. VIII, 122 f.). Storm also considered the Novelle superior to the novel, demanding a stricter, more tightly organized form (letter of October 9, 1879, to Erich Schmidt). Since Wilhelm Meister, the German novel had gone on in the "Entwicklungsroman" tradition, a peripatetic, episodical form that lays its chief stress on the inner life and growth of a private individual rather than a vivid account of life at large. Even the greatest of the 19th-century novels, Keller's Der grüne Heinrich, does not get free of the Meister tradition, while in its Novelle-constituents it betrays strikingly the newer current in literature. There is nothing in the 19th-century German "Roman" to match the vigor of the English novel from Scott through the great Victorians, nor of the great realistic French and Russian novels. The vitality and modernity which these countries were putting into the novel Germany was putting into the Novelle. Her writers showed that this compact and "streamlined" vehicle could be made both a structure of the highest literary art and a medium for the greatest themes. It plumbed the depths and heights of life and took as its province "was der ganzen Menschheit zugeteilt ist." Heyse could write (in 1871): Everything that agitates the human heart belongs in (the Novelle's) orbit. . . From the simple account of a remarkable occurrence or an

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ingeniously invented adventurous tale the Novelle has gradually evolved into a form in which the very deepest and most important ethical questions are debated (Novellenschatz, Vol. I, p. xiv). Where the older story-telling had sought to distract from the troublesome phenomena of the present, the Novelle coped with the gravest of contemporary social issues: crime and justice, heredity and environment, parents and children, individual and communal guilt, silence and confession and their psychological effects, blindness, race prejudice, mercy-killing—there is no end of the evidence for the up-todateness of the Novelle in this period when it was the clearest voice of the German mind in literature. This supreme flowering of the Novelle and of Poetic Realism came to an end with the incoming of Impressionism and Naturalism. A growing relativism in art and morality, a growing skepticism in the face of the increasing complexity and uncertainty of life, a preoccupation with social mechanisms and blanket "conditions," a concern with M a n in his millions—all such things do not favor a form of writing that puts a significant individual and a significant event into the center of its picture and marks them off sharply from life's anonymous flow. The Poetic Realist sought both to picture "things as they are" and to read an ethical and artistic pattern in them; the Impressionist and Naturalist stopped at the first, thinking that life alone made art. Expressionism, on the other hand, with its emphasis on the intellectual and abstract, its disparagement of the outer world, its opposition to traditional forms, in fact to form as such, was by nature averse to the realism and the disciplined structure of the Novelle. As for us in our mid-20th century, we are no longer sure that we know, as the 19th century did, what reality is. We suspect it as a mere projection of our consciousness. We have advanced from Realism to Surrealism. We like to read K a f k a , in whose world reality has lost all realness. We do not believe that reality can be mastered by art, but rather by the machines we invent to replace Man. Despite all our outcries against Communism, we believe less and less in M a n as an individual. For us, Freud and Jung have atomized the individual. We seek collective security against suffering and tragedy in vast "shield" organizations ; we look to a paternal, regulatory, standardizing Government to take care of us. Even in scholarship, group projects are replacing individual enterprises. With the weakening of our sense of individual

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responsibility and the need for personal commitment—one might say, our sense for aristocracy—has come a lessening of our toleration for individualism and tragedy in literature and for exacting, artistic style in literature. Whether all these reasons apply to it or not, the Novelle in its full character, its 19th-century character, is no longer a vital, authentic mode of literary expression in our times. It no longer speaks to or for our condition. Novellen can be and have been written in the 20th century. Indeed, some aspects of the genre, such as its ironical and experimental capacities, its subjective-objective tensions, have appealed to the modern temper, say in Thomas M a n n or Hugo von Hofmannsthal or Stefan Zweig. But these men, significantly enough, belong to the "old Europe," and Mann's Novellen are less modern than his novels. Being conscious stylists, too, such writers have felt the artistic challenge of the Novelle form. And determined traditionalists like Paul Ernst have returned to its earliest canon. But a cult is not a living art. The taste of the times has taken other directions; it seems to run rather to wordy, overstuffed novels or pungent, superficial shortstories—each in its way formless. Each of them, of course, may evolve into something better. But it may be a long time before another happy combination of forces and talents produces an artistic achievement comparable to the German Novelle in its greatest period.

VI Vocational Education

Changing

Skill Patterns

of

Occupations Jor which Training Needed in the Atomic H O W A R D K.

is

Age

HOGAN*

employer and employee relations to trade and industrial education, I have learned two things: First, that an increasing number of employer and employee organizations, professional societies, and manpower groups, are becoming actively interested in finding ways and means of meeting future skilled manpower needs which are now becoming more and more apparent. Second, industrial members of these groups have not as yet crystalized the skilled manpower needs of their respective industries to a point where they can spell out, specifically, what levels and kind of educational programs can best serve them. However, within the past year a number of industrial committees have been conducting CONSULTANT ON

* Consultant on Employee-Employer Relations, Trade and Industrial Education Branch, Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C. 141

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surveys, studies, and other activities in this field. Some definite results should be forthcoming within the next year or so. Another stimulus to technical and scientific education and training was the enactment by Congress of Public Law 864, "The National Defense Education Act of 1958." Title VIII of this Act amended to George-Barden Federal Vocational Education Act of 1946, by adding a Title III, "Area Vocational Education Programs." Provisions of the title that are particularly significant in this respect are that it provides that state and local schools eligible under this Act may provide instruction solely limited to the training of highly skilled technicians whose work requires considerable knowledge in science and mathematics in recognized occupations in fields essential to National Defense. The only limitations on persons who enroll are that they must be able to profit by the instruction and that they shall have completed the 9th grade or be 16 years of age or over. Courses may be given of "less than college grade" at the post-high school level. Many persons say that with advancing skill requirements to meet the needs of increasing technological developments, the education and training of technicians is currently the most important and pressing responsibility charged to vocational educators for preparing skilled technical workers for industries. I shall now endeavour to outline the points which I hope to discuss here. While no doubt there will be some new occupations that will develop in the years ahead, I do not know specifically what they are. For some time to come, changes in skill requirements will take the form of additional ones imposed on skilled craft workers in the traditional trades as we know them today. This is often referred to as "job enlargement." It is man's nature to resist change in his pattern of living and working. This resistance to change is inherent in trade unions, and also in management as well for that matter. Each trade union will try to retain jurisdiction over work tasks commonly associated by custom with their trade as long as possible irrespective of changes in materials, methods, techniques, or tools. They will resist the formation of any other group or union which attempts to take over jurisdiction of any jobs or materials that they now hold. These matters can be resolved only through recognized collective bargaining agreements established between the union and management concerned.

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The responsibilities for determining changes in skill patterns, and other matters relating to conditions under which work is to be performed, the length and other conditions of apprenticeship, the amount and kind of related technical and supplemental instruction to be given is solely an employer-employee responsibility. Such matters are generally handled by some type of advisory committee on which all groups concerned have representation. Occasionally these matters are made a part of collective-bargaining agreements. Vocational and technical educators should look to such advisory committees to assist them in setting-up adequate pre-employment programs for youth and upgrading programs for adult workers, and in keeping these programs in line with the ever changing requirements of occupations. However, these committees can have advisory responsibilities only in so far as education is concerned. The administration of the educational functions of a vocational or technical program in which the school is participating is the responsibility of the school officials. But these officials cannot hope to carry out an adequate program of training for skilled workers and technicians without the advice and counsel of such committees. Perhaps I can best approach predictions of future skill changes by quoting from some reports and speeches of responsible persons who have made studies on this subject. From the Report of the Director General, titled: Part I; Automation and Other Technological Developments, Labour and Social Implications, made to the Fortieth Session of the International Labour Organization Conference held in Geneva, June 1957, Chapter IV, "Skill Changes," I shall quote a few of many pertinent statements: Changes in skill are among the most far-reaching and socially significant results of technological innovation at any time. Today, these changes are being multiplied, in number, kind and complexity. . . . It is generally believed that increased mechanization and use of machine power to replace human effort will accelerate the shift of emphasis in industry from production to planning and preparation, from work shop to office, from the assembly line to the tool room and the drawing office. A look at the industrial world today, however, suggests that a redefinition of skill is long overdue. There is widespread agreement that the need for skilled workers, technicians, and engineers is likely to expand. It is also generally agreed that the nature of their work will change with the progress of technology. The technicians and skilled men of tomorrow will have to be more flexible,

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more versatile, more knowledgeable; men who can work across industrial and occupational lines. Specifically, it is believed that there will be more need in future for men with specialized experience of maintenance and production operations, combined with some knowledge of and skill in industrial administrative and organizational work—for example, in planning, work study, design, preventive maintenance and other functions of a managerial, supervisory, preparatory and preventive character. Already completely new occupations are coming into being, such as "programmers" for the new equipment, and a new and large class of technicians—trained experts of semi-professional grade. In management and supervision, emphasis is shifting from the use of the services of men to the technical control of machines and equipment. Let me add that it is as difficult to generalize as to speculate about the trend of skill in the economy of today and tomorrow. For many years to come it will be easier to keep track of numerical changes in employment than to see what is really happening to skill. I am, however, sure that the skill classifications of the past are not appropriate to the labour force of the new technological age. The new and changed jobs and skill requirements suggest the necessity of revised concepts and classifications in keeping with the more technical, scientific and administrative labour force which is coming into being. Let us not be too slow in thinking about these problems in the fresh terms required. I should like at this point to comment on a statement I have read several times that automation would upgrade, for example, a semiskilled operator into a highly skilled technician. This is stretching language and compressing reality unduly. A u t o m a t i o n can upgrade jobs. It will not upgrade people. John Convery, Industrial Relations Division of the National Association of Manufacturers stated in a speech before the North Atlantic Regional Conference on Trade and Industrial Education in New York City on March 27, 1956: " S o m e workers will need to develop new skills and abilities. The following are some of the changes that can be expected to accompany further use of automatic equipment: Instruments will take the place of some machine operators. Maintenance mechanics in greater number and with new knowledge will be required. There will be an increasing need for experts on instruments. Technicians and engineers will be in heavy demand.

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As the machine replaces physical energy, more opportunities will open up for women, for the handicapped, for older people. More technical knowledge will be needed on many jobs. Ability to get along with others and to work together will take on added value. Increasing productivity will accompany better training. It is rather much for us to expect the schools to anticipate the changes that are taking place in industrial life. New methods and machines cannot be put in use until people are trained to operate them. This is first of all a responsibility of management, but the assistance of the schools is needed. In considering the effect of automation on the vocational-technical schools, we might consider: The increasing need for technical knowledge will probably cause a reallocation of time as between shop practice and technical subjects. New subjects will be added to the school curriculum. Instrumentation, servo-mechanisms, hydraulics, electronics, and other subjects may be needed by the mechanic and the technician. The function of the school, primarily, is to provide the broad basic pre-employment training. Industry will supply the highly specialized training. Additional programs will be developed to prepare maintenance mechanics, to equip assistants for engineers, to increase the number of specialists. Programs will be developed for employed persons who desire to advance through increased technical knowledge. The service industries will need more and better artisans, craftsmen, and mechanics. The age and grade level of vocational training will continue to rise. More women will be found taking these courses. There will be an increasing need for teachers of technical subjects. I s a d o r Lubin, Industrial Commissioner of the N e w Y o r k State D e p a r t m e n t of Labor, stated before the Eastern S e a b o a r d Apprenticeship Conference o n J u n e 1, 1955: Even though automation is in its infancy, the engineers and scientists are already complaining that their progress is being held up because we do not have enough journeymen who can operate the complex electronic stop-andstart mechanisms. Others in the field are shouting about the potential shortages of machinists and tool and die makers who will have to set up the new production lines. . . . It may be necessary also to expand vastly our educational facilities for

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the training of technicians who fit into the scheme of things at a level below that of the professional engineer or physicist, but require more background and theoretical education than is now required in the crafts. The pattern for this type of training has already been established in the technical institutes and two-year colleges that have been set up in various parts of the country. They are creating a new category of skills to assist the professional engineer and physicist, thus leaving the latter free to concentrate their efforts on the more highly technical problems. Some new skills will be required—at the skilled manual, at the technician; and at the professional levels alike. This assertion risks stating the obvious but it is worth stating partly because just what kinds of new skills will be required is far from clear, since in 1955 the content of the new technology is far from crystallized. In terms of training, this means that the identification and development of these new skills will have to occur at the cutting edge of the new technology, that is, in companies experimenting with automation. . . . A well-known home-building industry journal, House and Home, in its January 1958 issue projects in an interesting report their conception of what home-building would be like in 1960. To quote from a section on "Skill Changes": If the predictions made on this report prove reasonably accurate, then the 196X home building industry will need a new breed of men to run it, plan for it, build for it. And home building will require new trades in old places, and old trades in new places: carpenters (the most versatile home building workers today) must become all-round mechanics, ready and able to do all the on-site assembly of components. Plumbers and electricians will do most of their work in fabricating plants, all year round and under controlled conditions. And the painters will work there, too, with spray guns or "paint baths" instead of little brushes. For nothing will be quite so precious in 196X as the available man-hours of labor—the labor that today's home building now wastes at almost every point. What about the traditional trades and skills ? The fact is, of course, that the house of 196X will still use plenty of brick, block and stone and wood. W h a t has been predicted for skill changes for home building applies to the heavy construction industry. In a n article appearing in the November 8, 1956, issue of the Engineering News-Record, entitled "The Engineer Shortage" the need

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of post-high School trained technicians to meet technical and skilled manpower needs in the construction industry is given considerable emphasis. Joseph F. Phillips, Apprentice Co-ordinator, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, had this to say at an Atomic Industrial Forum Conference in Chicago, September 25-27, 1956: To cite but a few typical illustrations: Precision work requiring the use of feeler gauge and micrometers, as well as fabrication work requiring precision jigs, is constantly expanding. Another example: Installation techniques growing out of the necessity of keeping radio-activity at a minimum complicate our training problems. The demand for welders skilled in the inert-gas method of welding increases in a proportion to the amount of Atomic Energy work under construction. As portable X-ray equipment becomes standard on this type construction, one of our many new tasks will be assisting the Welding Inspector in checking each weld for flaws. Here again, we are confronted with a growing demand for personnel possessing above average qualifications, the product of efficient and thorough training. A building trades journeyman, for instance, who can handle only two or three operations in his trade lacks the proper mobility and flexibility so vitally necessary when one job is completed and the time comes to move on to another.

For the purpose of this discussion, I shall consider automation as a continuous system of industrial production, and discuss only the impact of automation on the skill changes of maintenance craftsmen who keep automatic machinery and equipment in the plants operating. The tools of automation are mainly electronic in nature. The rest involve pneumatics, hydraulics, electrics, mechanics, and optics. Generally the work done on the machinery, equipment and controls is assigned to the traditional trades having recognized jurisdiction over various phases of the job. The trades include in general, machinists, millwrights, pipefitters, sheet metal workers, tool and die makers, heat treaters, carpenters, electricians, instrument service men, job set-up men and others, including technicians of various kinds. These craftsmen must be not only skilled in the work of their own trade, but of other trades as well. Since the shutting down of a unit of an automated system may make it necessary to shut down the entire line—a very

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costly situation—certain craftsmen must work closely together as a team to make speedy repairs. Each must have some workable technical understanding of the tools, methods and technical processes of the entire automated system. As you can readily see, the large amount of technical knowledge and theory that these craftsmen must gain in addition to a high degree of precision and accuracy required by the close tolerances of automated machinery, will bring about important changes and enlargement in their job skills. For those who are interested in this subject in more detail, much pertinent information will be found in three Government publications; all reports of "Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress." These may be purchased from U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D.C. The titles of these publications are: 1. Automation

and Technological

Change, 1955, 644 pages, price §2.

2. Automation and Recent Trends, 1957, 100 pages, price 30 cents. 3. Instrumentation and Automation, 1957, 202 pages, price 75 cents. Instrumentation is currently the fastest developing technological process in industry. Instruments and automatic controls are the "heart" of automation. Without them "feedback" controls would not be possible as it involves applied electricity, electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics and optics. Instrument service men must be highly skilled and have a large amount of technical knowledge about these physical principles and their applications. Good instrument service men are hard to come by. Some are required to be skilled craftsmen as well. They are fast being recognized as technicians. Since they must have considerable technical training in applied science, mathematics, blueprint reading, and technical communications, this group can well profit from vocational and technical education programs. The Atomic Age will present a tremendous challenge to all of us. Vocational and technical education for the future must be kept flexible so that the individual you have trained can master the ever changing technical processes of advancing technology. The impact on vocational and technical education will be great. But it will be met. That is the American way of life.

Νανγ Training COMMANDER

Programs

W. Η. R O G E R S ,

USN

NLY A FEW days ago an atomic submarine of the United States Navy surfaced for the first time since it dived into the strange world under the sea sixty days before. The skipper of the submarine said they could have remained under the sea indefinitely. Much preparation and experimentation preceded this f e a t . . . and it couldn't have been done without the use of the atomic reactor propulsion system. Scientific exploration and economic power of our country is responsible for making our country stronger; however, it takes more than money and machines . . . it takes young men and women with the ability to learn, the desire to learn, and the desire to do their part in helping to make our country stronger. With the introduction of newer and more complex equipment into the Navy comes the need for more intensified training—the need for specialists in every phase of Navy life. Naturally, this need for more training opens many fields of opportunity for young men and women who are desirous of learning while they are serving their country. The Navy realizes that the more education and training young men and 149

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women are subjected to, the more valuable they are to the Navy, to their Country, and to themselves. This is the reason why the Navy always has and always will stress the policy "Stay in School!!" In fact, when a young man in a high school gets spring fever, or that feeling of adventure in his blood s t r e a m . . . or the drudgery of studying gets him down . . . and he decides to "join the Navy and see the world" . . . he does not get encouragement from the local Navy recruiter. In fact, the recruiter will contact the man's high school principal immediately and attempt to interest him in continuing his education. Not only do we encourage every young man to graduate from high school, but we urge him to go on to college if it is at all possible. Naturally, every young man or woman who wants to go to college cannot do so. If the reason is financial the Navy certainly has the answer. If a young man graduates from school, and is unable to go on to college he certainly should check into the many opportunities offered by the United States Navy. One of the things that seems to puzzle some students is the Navy's four year enlistment policy. They say "Why should I join the Navy for four years when I could join another service for a lesser period of time?" To answer this question I'd like to use a sample case. Just suppose a young man wants to get into the electronics field in the Navy. He comes into the Navy Recruiting Station, he passes the tests, and is enlisted as an electronics recruit. Then he goes through basic training or boot camp, as we call it, which lasts about nine weeks. From there he goes on to primary training in electronics, which lasts another 52 weeks. After graduating from the Class " A " school, or the basic course he goes on to advanced training, and before he is ready to join the fleet, over two years of his four-year enlistment will have been completed. He is then thoroughly familiar with the Navy's newest equipment, and ready to put his knowledge to work for the Navy, and all the time he is putting this knowledge to work he is gaining very valuable experience which will "pay off" in many ways for the man whether he decides to make the Navy his career, or to put his knowledge to use in a civilian capacity. The Navy doesn't ask too much of a man in return for the education he gains. The Navy has many different kinds of opportunities to offer young men and women. There is our regular male enlisted program, which

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is the four-year enlistment I referred to. There is a program for young women in the officer and enlisted billets. There is the Naval Reserve Officer Training Program, the Navcad Program, the Navy Nurse Corps, and many other officers' programs.

Changing Objectives in Metallurgical Education A. O. S C H A E F E R *

POKESMEN FOR THE m a n y metals industries began deploring the shortage of trained metallurgists f o u r or five years before the Sputnik made scientific education popular. T h e growth of these industries has been phenomenal ever since the last war. It became acute during the K o r e a n Conflict. D u r i n g this time the number of colleges and universities giving courses leading to degrees in metallurgy has increased. Unfortunately, most of these institutions have not been able to build up large under-graduate student bodies.

S

While the various metals industries have been growing at a rapid rate, the developments in this field have been such that the trained metallurgist must be increasingly a real scientist. Engineering design fifty years ago utilized only a fraction of the strength of metals. A i r c r a f t , jet engines, nuclear reactors, guided missiles, and many other modern products have drastically changed * President, Pencoyd Steel Forge Corporation. 152

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this. The highest elastic limit that can be developed is needed in design. It is even necessary in extreme cases to utilize materials for limited life periods. Engineering waits for materials with ever better properties. The natural result has been that undergraduate work in metallurgy has had to devote more time to so-called " p u r e " science. The student needs all of the mathematics, solid state physics, and chemistry he has time to assimilate. Universities tend to devote their time and energies to these areas in which they can be most effective. They are competent in teaching these advanced subjects. When they d o so, it usually means that they leave the practical phases of the industry to others. There is thus a broadening field in what might be called process metallurgy in which we need trained personnel. It is highly probable that there will be many j o b opportunities in this field, but anyone interested should be warned that these openings will be for genuinely trained people. Laboratory technicians, personnel trained in testing and inspection procedures, melters, forgers, machinists, are only a few of the fields in which real knowledge is needed to meet today's needs. It is hoped that the opportunities in this field will attract those who can contribute to it by aptitude as well as by training. It is a pleasant and rewarding field in which to work. Metals have a fascination, perhaps because of their beauty and theirgreat usefulness, perhaps because they are usually born in the crucible at high temperature, that attracts the interest for a whole life-time. Those in the field can testify to this. Much can be taught in school to prepare people for work in metals. It is to be hoped that facilities will exist for this teaching, and students will be found to avail themselves of the opportunities in it.

Educational Implications oj the Demands oj the

Technological

Economy on Industry J O H N R.

CARPENTER*

V

IRTUALLY EVERY INDUSTRY operates its own schools, with its own instructors, and its own students. The myth that ours is a specialized supplement of yours has been maintained too long. Supplement means "to add too," which would mean that we take your graduates and we build on the foundations you have provided. The fact is that our courses are as basic as yours and our choice of candidates will be those whose qualifications need not include your training, and often omit it. Industry seldom buys your Draftsman product. When it does, it promptly retrains him in its own image. Recognizing that all problems are subject to objective analysis, that there are no absolutes, and that the schools could be right and industry wrong we entered, three years ago, into a working arrangement with local representatives of education, government, and * Chief Engineer, Ballistic Missile Division, Burroughs Inc., Paoli, Pa.

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industry, to examine the problems, and to try to find solutions. We identified this group by the sonorous, but certainly all encompassing, title of "The Design and Drafting Council of Delaware Valley." We looked at what industry was doing and what they needed. We compared your product with ours, we fussed at each other in spots, but worked together mostly, we committed, your speaker included, judgment errors here and there, and we corrected them. We are a long ways from knowing all the answers. But we have established some fairly concrete premises. In the first place, and before I lose too many friends, we established that the schools, and its teachers, were doing a competent and commendable job. The youngsters were learning, and learning well, what you taught. Next, we proved to our satisfaction what was already obvious to everybody. Not nearly enough youngsters were interested, or had real reason to be interested, in the subject and so the available candidates were painfully few. It was when we got to looking at what you were teaching, and to whom, and we correlated this knowledge with industries' practices, that we began to see the light. And the culprit. Industry, with great ingenuity, initiative, and a total lack of foresight, made this mess all by itself. In the past twenty years we've changed the ground rules, the practices, and—most important of all—the objectives, in our usage of draftsmen. Up to just lately we had hardly discussed these changes amongst ourselves. Not until the shortages began to pinch real hard did we remember to think of the schools. Now we know it isn't that you don't teach our work. We quit doing what you teach. This divergence can be highlighted in two areas. The first area is as easy to correct as to see. Vast technical improvements in the reproduction arts have made obsolete many basic drawing techniques and, with it, some of the systems—and personnel. India ink, tracing cloth and Tracers, layout cardstock, and all the associated techniques were once essential if the prints made from drawings were to be readable and usable. Today's potent ammonia Whiteprinters reproduce pencil-on-vellum drawings with such ease that ink work, and all its elaborate paraphernalia, is about unnecessary. Spurred on by the ever-mounting time-loss and cost inherent in the making of drawings, the element of pictorial artistry—already shaken by the passing of ink—was further reduced by our inability to allow time for

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any delineation past the point of minimum requirements of truth, accuracy, and clarity. Mechanist drawing aides—many of them—and printed text have supplanted the skills once needed for the performance of such tedious chores as gears and screw threads. The art of making changes to drawings has become so vital that the draftsman must not only develop his skill with the elementary eraser and shield to a high degree, but must also become familiar with a host of other correction techniques which range f r o m the powered erasing machine, various chemical solutions for different drawing media, on up to the use of photo selective masking methods. We've even changed the pencil sharpening methods. The second area of divergence, by far the most important, is our use of the draftsman. In the very early stages of his career he is what he has always been—a pictorial communicator between the Engineer and the Fabricator. A little better than the old-fashioned Tracer. A sort of engineering secretary who listens to technical dictation and prepares a missive. Past this point he becomes something different. He has moved into the bottom echelon of a series of engineering levels and commences to move upward. He has been admitted into the engineering team—and is expected to integrate. At the higher levels the difference between the assignment of duties to the draftsman and to the engineer becomes neither great nor clear. The Engineer, formally schooled, has a broad concept of fundamentals and is trained in the application of theory to problems. N o limitations exist to prevent the able draftsman from developing equal skills and, in the permissive and encouraging atmosphere in industry, a good draftsman can become an engineer. Many have done so. Today the drawing room has become one of industry's handiest manpower pools for the filling of subprofessional and leadership jobs, and the standards of selection of the draftsman candidate needs somehow to be re-orientated to recognize this new fact of life. Last spring, under the auspices of Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, the Council held a fourteen-week Educators Seminar on the industrial environment in the design and drafting field. Recognized drafting authorities from the Construction, Electronic, Marine, Airframe, Utilities, and Heavy Machine industries each presented a detailed account of the life and times of the draftsman in his particular area. Eighty teachers attended these talks.

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Almost as many again could not be accommodated for lack of space and speaker stamina. We are going to do it again this fall. Just how effectively we have succeeded in communicating a picture of what we do, what we want, and what we give in exchange, we cannot yet tell. But there can be no question of the heartening enthusiasm attending our efforts. It is amply clear that the teachers want this information and are willing to go to some trouble to get it. We infer, happily, that they will put it to good use. We would like to see this blessed union extended to a national basis, and we are prepared to do whatever is needed to encourage this. On a much larger scale, and to greater depth, industry and education must get together. This is not frosting on the cake. This is a matter of survival, and we have barely scratched the surface. We need—and ask for—your consideration of, and participation in, this project.

Demands oj the

Technological

Economy on Industry and Jor J O H N

Implications

Education M.

B R O P H Y

*

million 1 students are enrolled in vocational education of less than college level. We are at the highest point in personnel, interest, and financial aid since the passage of the Smith Hughes Act about forty years ago. Of the nearly 200 million dollars spent this year, local communities contributed nearly half, the states a third, and the Federal Government the rest. As an added measure of public confidence and concern, the 35th Congress on September 2, enacted as an amendment to the National Vocational Education Act of 1945, the National Defense Act of 19582, Under title III, an added appropriation of 15 million dollars is authorized for area vocational education programs.

T

ODAY MORE THAN

* Director, School of Business Administration, University of Rochester. 1 Digest of annual reports of State Boards for Vocational Education to the Office of Education, Division of Vocational Education. Fiscal year ended June 30,1957. Washington, D.C.U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education. 2 Public Law 85-864, 85th Congress, H. R. 13247, September 2, 1958.

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These 15 millions will probably be matched by local communities and the states until they aggregate an added seventy-five millions. Their exclusive purpose will be to fit individuals for useful employment as highly skilled workers and technicians in recognized occupations requiring scientific knowledge as determined by the states in fields necessary for the national defense, including training and work experience programs and related instruction for apprentices. In the decade 1940-1950 our total work force grew 25 per cent1 while a 47 per cent growth in all forms of Vocational Education was achieved, but in the same period although the total number of skilled and semi-skilled workers grew more than 41 per cent (41.4) enrollments in all forms of federally-aided trade and industrial education increased only 6 per cent. This lag of nearly 35 per cent was not felt as keenly in the trade extension programs. They gained times as rapidly as the whole trade and industrial program, but even here in the single year, 1956, less than 3 per cent of those employed as skilled and semi-skilled workers were enrolled in such classes.2 The gain nationally was not experienced to the same degree in Pennsylvania where a decline of more than 12 per cent (12.5) occurred over the decade. While the gross national product increased 55 per cent during the 1940-50 decade (from 208 to 322 billions in 1955 dollars) the over-all vocational education program received a 134 per cent increase in funds from all sources (55 to 128 million).

The Problem This public vote of confidence poses the problem: How best can industrial education in all its forms serve the needs of those who through full or part-time study, wish to equip themselves for advantageous entry into industry and eventual upgrading in the work of their choice ? A partial answer hinges on the industrial complex which will 1

George Leland Bach, Economics: An Introduction to Analysis and Policy, p. 115, New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 2 U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Division of Vocational Education, Washington, D.C.; July 9, 1957. Table 4-1958; Table 51958; Table 6-1958.

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a b s o r b the youth a n d adults leaving our Schools. F o u r features of this complex invite o u r attention today: Need for productivity to match population growth: Rapidity of technological change accompanied by increasing size and complexity of business; Increased m a t u r i t y in union-management relationships; and Increased sensitivity to h u m a n factors in management. These, and o t h e r features of the complex will challenge our insight, wisdom and the most adroit use of our professional resources.

Population

Pressure

In the 'thirties, o u r population was expected to level off at around 140 million with a labor force of a b o u t forty million. A suggestion by Vice President Henry Wallace that 60 million j o b s were a possibility in this country brought banner headlines of ridicule in papers coast to coast. The unemployed then constituted a serious problem, and m a n y were considered unemployable. Now, about 70 million persons are in the labor force, and nearly 67 million of them are working. Estimates of 79 million in the workforce of 1965 and 88 million by 1975 are advanced by the Government. Where will they all come f r o m ? There has been an increase of over 121 per cent in our population since the beginning of the 20th century. Currently, as we have during the past decade, we are adding three million persons to the population yearly. And not only additions, but the lengthened work life of workers is important. Today, the average working life of men has increased ten years—they are in the l a b o r force that much longer. (32 to 42.) Incidentally, the added three million yearly occurred in a decade when the p r o p o r t i o n of young people of marriageable age was relatively low. Depending u p o n economic a n d other factors, a m u c h sharper gain in birth rates may result in the years beginning with 1965. The problem posed by these d a t a has been well stated by Peter Drucker, in a challenging view of " A m e r i c a ' s Next Twenty Years " : We face a paradox: There are going to be more people, and hence more jobs, but not more people to fill the jobs. In fact, it is likely that the next twenty years will find us facing a labor shortage. If the rate of population growth does not increase over what it has been in the past fifty years, the

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total population of the United States, now at 162 million can be expected to rise to 190 million by 1965, and to 220 million by 1975. But while the total population will grow rapidly the working population will grow very slowly, if at all. Although by 1965 the population will grow thirty million, there will actually be a shrinkage of two million in the age groups twenty-five to forty-five, the one from which most employment managers prefer to choose. On the other hand there will be six million more people over sixtyfive, and at least sixteen million more under twenty, than there are today. Today every American at work supports himself (or herself) and one and-a-half other people besides. Twenty years from now every American at work should produce enough to support, at today's standard of living, himself and three-and-a-half other people, and he will have to do this in fewer working hours. 1

Unquestionably, the size of our labor force, the products and services needed to shield and advance our rising standard of living, and our position in the markets of the world will be influenced by our continuing population growth. Advancing Technology and Organization

Growth

In emphasizing the importance of population growth, its effect on changing j o b patterns needs recognition as well as whole new industries which have developed in less than a generation—guided missiles, jet-gas engine turbines, electronics and the atomic power industry, among others. Incidentally it has been estimated that 210 atomic reactor operators will be at work by 1960 and by 1980, 18,670.2 Spectacular developments in the field of new industries have been matched by changes in established industries. Mr. Cordiner, as President of General Electric Co., indicated that nearly a third of their approximately 250,000 employees are now working on products which were not in production in 1939. M r . William Decker, President, Corning Glass Works, claimed in 1953 that of their more than 150 million dollars in sales, 60 per cent could be attributed to products not in existence a decade earlier. Changes not only in products and services, but in size are significant. IBM has doubled in size twice within a 1

Peter Drucker, "America's Next Twenty Years," Harper's Magazine, March, 1955. 2 A Fact Sheet, August, 1956. U.S. Dept. of Labor and U.S. Dept. ofH.E.W. Q.Q.A.E.-F

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decade and proposes to continue at that pace. General Electric has doubled in size every recent decade and is planning to continue that growth. Much of this change can be attributed to the money spent annually for research and development. As late as 1953, in the U.S., 2\ billions were spent; today in excess of 4 billions is being spent, and by 1973, conservative estimates are that 10 billions will be invested in innovation and improvement. These indications of the rate of change are suggestive of others in process, product and organization prevalent in many sectors of industry today. Such changes put a premium on a worker's ability to adapt to new jobs and relationships. As a specific illustration, DuPont has just reported that more than half of all their employees (57 per cent) have been on their present job assignments for less than five years; and over half of their 15-year employees have changed their jobs at least four times during that period.1 DuPont's experience can be matched by others reported in the literature on job mobility. Perhaps the major significance of these changes is that they require of persons at work new job skills, new understanding, attitudinal changes toward the job being done and toward each other, and a greater need for communicating effectively the values, feelings, and sentiments which link men either in co-operative effort or in conflict. This emphasis on the qualitative rather than the quantitative aspect of our work force deserves attention. Just to maintain our present skilled work force, without allowing for expansion, we need each year 250,000 workers. Unless we have the full use of the nation's manpower, developed to the maximum extent through appropriate education and training, we will not realize the brilliant future ahead. Further evidence of the trend to increasing skilled workers is shown in these data. In the decades between 1910 and 1950, craftsmen, foremen and kindred workers increased from 11.7 per cent of the work force to 13.8 per cent. By 1956 they aggregated nearly million in contrast with the 1910 total of about 4 million. Operatives and kindred workers increased from 14.1 per cent to 21.1 per cent and today aggregate nearly twice their 1910 total. Clerical workers increased from 2 millions to 7J; the professionals from 1.6 to 6 million; and with 1

DuPont, Better Living, September-October, 1958.

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these evidences of increasing skill needs, laborers decreased from one out of every four workers to only one of every ten. 1 Unions, Management,

and the Public

While the size and quality of the work force will always be of concern in the preparation and upgrading of youth and adults for employment, the role of worker's organization also calls for better understanding. One of the mechanisms, and the historic one, which workers have used to obtain and secure their skills, wages, hours, and working conditions has been their Union. With the grow th of industry, there has been a corresponding growth of labor unions, particularly since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. With increasing size, strength, and greater knowledge of how their strength could be employed to win concessions; with increasing resistance by companies and a deep distrust of the position in which they would be left if concessions were granted, the lines were drawn for bitter and costly struggles. The basic decision was whether industrial peace or industrial warfare was wanted. Assuming the former, it could best be aided through mutual understanding of each other's goals, the means of achieving them, dividing issues, and the role of government as an intermediary. With the merger of the AFL-CIO, concern reached new heights that the power of these combined unions would lead to industrial disaster. Meanwhile union strength grew until nearly 17 million workers were included in the combined federation. Then, in 1955, President George Meany of the AFL-CIO accepted an invitation to speak to the American Industry Conference (predominantly an employer group) about the union structure, its autonomy and responsibility. Later President Meany was quoted as saying: 2 . . . I submit that the men at the head of this organization—I am won speaking of the A. F. of L. and the CIO—actually have very little power. For instance, they have absolutely no power to tell anyone to go on a strike. And it may interest you to know that I am the President of this great organization that has such tremendous power and I never went on strike in my life.. . . 1

William Haber, Frederick Harbison, Lawrence Klein and Gladys Palmer, Manpower in the United States, New York: Harper & Bros., 1954. 2 What organized Labour Expects of Management. An Address by George Meany, President, AFL-CIO to Congress of American Industry, N . Y . : December, 1945.

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T h e n he a d d e d significantly, In the final analysis, there is not a great difference between the things I stand for and the things that the NAM leaders stand for. I stand for the profit system; I believe in the profit system. I believe it is a wonderful incentive. I believe in the free enterprise system completely. I believe in the return on capital investment. I believe in management's right to manage. And believing in all these things as a representative of free labor, what is there left for us to disagree about? It is merely for us to disagree, if you please, as to what share the worker gets, what share management gets from the wealth produced by the particular enterprise. And I am sure there is enough intelligence in the American worker, enough intelligence in American management to solve that problem in a fair, square, American way. If this is representative of the views held by responsible labor leadership today, it is well to ask whether the view is shared by management. At the same meeting where M r . M e a n y spoke, the management representative, M r . Charles R. Sligh, Jr., Board C h a i r m a n , National Association of M a n u f a c t u r e r s , declared that there is no natural antipathy between the interests of labor a n d m a n a g e m e n t ; that essentially three issues divide m a n a g e r s and l a b o r : individual liberty, economic responsibility, a n d bargaining integrity. In his view, b o t h m a n a g e m e n t a n d labor are " p a r t n e r s together in a free economy seeking a mutually satisfactory path we can tread together." In the light of the m u t u a l recrimination stemming f r o m the recent McClellan C o m m i t t e e ' s hearings, the above views seem strange. U n d o u b t e d l y , n o one speaks for all of labor any m o r e than one person speaks for all of m a n a g e m e n t . It is not the responsibility of education to provide indoctrination in one viewpoint or the other; rather for those entering business and industry the need is to be adequately informed of what each g r o u p is trying to achieve, the m e a n s it chooses in the process, and the responsibilities it imposes on those at work, whose loyalties will inevitably shift to one side or the other or be accorded to both.

Human Factors in

Management

T h e conflicts rising out of u n i o n - m a n a g e m e n t relationships; the increasingly impersonal relationships which accompanied increasing size of business establishments with greater reliance on rule-by-rules;

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and the desire as well as need for greater productivity—each of these a n d m o r e undoubtedly triggered the interest in what t o d a y is virtually a new era in the behavioral sciences, h u m a n relations. M r . James W o r t h y described the problem f r o m one viewpoint when he w r o t e : We in management are greatly concerned about the preservation of "free enterprise" and the "American Way of Life." In a real sense, much of our problem is this: We cannot preserve "free enterprise" in the market place unless we strengthen it in the work place—unless we extend to our business structures the democratic ideals we take for granted in our political structures. There are additional facets. It is clear that the American worker is a m o n g the best educated and best trained in the world. Yet, we lose nearly 40 per cent of o u r y o u t h before g r a d u a t i o n f r o m high school; a n d only slightly m o r e t h a n half of the t o p fifth of each g r a d u a t i n g class goes on to college. Meanwhile, the implications for trained labor in current industrial practice are clear. As a n illustration, D u P o n t , a m o n t h ago, indicated t h a t those with the c o m p a n y u n d e r age 25 have nearly twice as m u c h schooling as those over 55; that 55 per cent of their workers expect their children to have m o r e schooling that they themselves had. The a m o u n t of schooling is one indication of the recognition by m a n a g e m e n t and the workers themselves that the quality of our labor force—its creativeness, capacity, skills, a n d adaptability is related to educational attainment. In addition, research on h u m a n relations s u p p o r t s what the keen executive insight of Clarence Francis, then C h a i r m a n of the Board of General F o o d s , once observed. You can buy a man's time. You can buy a man's physical presence in a given place. You can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm—you cannot buy initiative—you cannot buy loyalty—you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls—you have to E A R N those things. T o d a y a growing b o d y of study points u p w h a t people want f r o m their w o r k ; under what conditions they will release or withhold their energies; and the i m p o r t a n c e of security, o p p o r t u n i t y , recognition, a n d preservation of dignity, if individual and t e a m effort is to be obtained. O u t c o m e s f r o m these realizations are changing behavior on the part of supervisors; o p p o r t u n i t y for greater participation on the

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part of workers in developing policies which affect them; and an increasing need to be able to grasp the interrelationships between jobs, departments, organizations, economies, and governments. Not only has insight into the importance of human relations developed in industry today; plants are endeavouring to meet the demand that understanding imposes. N o other nation in the world rivals in its industrial undertakings the amount of training found in American industry today. In IBM one-fourth of the work group attends one or more company courses during the year; some companies, General Electric, as an illustration, with an educational budget of nearly 40 millions, maintain separate educational institutions which rival some colleges and universities in the quality and scope of their services. Many companies utilize trade associations to conduct the training which they themselves are unable to provide; and one study showed that about a third of the larger companies have co-operated with vocational education authorities in advancing the training of their workers. The implications are clear. Many used to think that with departure from the full time school, formal education was over. Today, it is doubtful whether the combined public school enrollment of nearly thirty million equals the number being trained in industry dayin, day-out. The National Conference Board reports 1 more than half of all respondent firms have formal training programs for production workers, nearly half for supervision, and one-fourth for executives.

What is Taught Many of us have long held to the concept that instruction in the trades should constitute our major educational effort; and primarily in the " d o i n g " requirements of the trades. Often, the emphasis has been on the construction trades. But the great bulk of workers are not and will not be tradesmen. And manufacturing industry employs four times the number of workers found in the construction trades. Too, should we not consider being of more assistance to the semi-skilled who need only a minimum emphasis on manipulative learning in widely transferrable skills? Their main concern day-in, day-out, is not with skill-fixing. Rather, they live and work in a social system which imposes demands on their minds and energies with their skills being 1

N.I.C.B., Studies in Personnel Policy, Number 145, N.Y.: The Board, 1953.

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relatively unimportant to them. What their responsibilities are as workers, their relationship to management, the union and each other, the issues which they will be asked to consider—are not these the types of learning which they most need ? Are they not most concerned with the responsibilities of industrial citizenship? Should we not enrich their understanding through more informational study, possibly presented through a problem approach? As an illustration, how many of us, with the advantage of added years, would have valued early the study of: Why some industries decline while others prosper Factors contributing to stability of employment The relationship between unions, management, and the public Industrial organization and the management of production Job layout and methods improvement Personnel practices in industry, including recruitment, selection training, wage and salary payments, and employee service programs. In addition, concentration on the crafts and trades invariably means emphasis on individual fabrication of complete products, less on the teamwork required in continuous and batch process manufacture. And, traditionally, more concern is shown with preparation for competency within the narrow limits of a single trade or job than with a measure of versatility through preparation for job clusters or entire occupations. We ought to question whether we should not assume more responsibility to develop not only workers competent in the manipulative and technical aspects of their work (with the latter becoming increasingly important), but those as well who understand how to plan and organize their work; how to combine their efforts with others; and the interrelationship between their plant and others, their industry and others, and their country and others. And we ought to find ways of emphasizing more an understanding of the values peculiar to individuals and organizations, their roots in human behavior, and their perception of how the job, company and community setting makes its impact on workers. Obviously, to consider this shift in emphasis would be to consider also a flexible interpretation of the appropriate time to be allocated to shop and related studies, even a more flexible interpretation of what

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constitutes related studies. In turn, this raises the question of the kinds and amount of training in skills which should be left to employers themselves. We may well recall that already 1 of every 5 high school youths between 14-17 is in the labor market and working, nearly a third as much as 35 hours weekly. In venturing these views, I am well aware that of equal importance will be more emphasis on mathematics and the sciences, particularly for those who wish advancement in specialized fields as well as opportunities at the managerial level. In addition to changes in what is taught, would not a different organizational effort prove rewarding in many larger communities? Why not experiment with the addition of two or more years to one or more senior high school programs and provide the opportunity for intensive vocational and technical preparation on a sound academic base ? Would this not increase the motivation of superior students to continue into terminal technical programs ?

What Implication for Teacher

Training

We may also question whether our in-service development of staff members is attuned to the times. Should teachers already at a disadvantage financially, be expected to support alone the costs of further professional improvement ? Many firms today are providing employees with higher incomes, tuition refund plans, educational leaves of absence, and direct scholarship assistance to encourage their further professional study. Cannot our financial aids and industry co-operation be used more imaginatively? F o r those preparing to enter the teaching professions, I am under the impression that an adjustment in the balance between shop subjects, professional education courses, and the liberal-cultural studies, including mathematics and the sciences is already under way with the latter receiving greater emphasis. This is a move in the right direction. At the Master's degree level, and particularly for those who desire to move into the administrative aspect of industrial education, I seriously question the desirability of additional shop subjects at the cost of reduced study in social and natural science, mathematics, literature and art.

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169 Leadership

A final thought related to the development of administrative leadership. We need to examine the assumptions and practices on which in the past we have relied and which have proven inadequate to our needs today. Typically, we have drawn administrators from the ranks of teachers who have had a preliminary training period of three or more years in industry; they followed this by five, seven, or more years of journeyman experience, usually in a single trade and below managerial level. To qualify as a teacher, they then needed to satisfy a minimum of one and often two or more years of professional education and other college courses. Then, before arriving in a position where leadership opportunity was provided in other than class-room relationships, several years of teaching service were expected. Often, only then, usually after 15 years or more, have teachers been encouraged to accept leadership responsibility and assisted to develop administrative competence. At that stage, many who appear to have leadership potential have studied little in a systematic way about our economic and social institutions; groups and group behavior; the philosophy, characteristics, organization, problems and tactics of the agencies most likely to influence our movement and use its product —management, unions, government, and the professions. Yet, as in industry, with each move up the educational ladder, the importance of technical abilities to administrative leadership diminishes while the demand for administrative skills and ability to visualize opportunities, problems and relationships increases. Should we examine long range planning for leadership? Why not try to forecast changes resulting from growth of some programs and the curtailment of others? Involved will be estimates on support plans, legislative enactments, admission policies, and population as well as industrial shifts. Then we might inventory personnel in the program, including estimates of numbers leaving voluntarily, through terminations, retirements and natural causes. Lines of promotion could be approximated, together with individuals believed to have the potential for anticipated vacancies. A tentative replacement schedule could be developed indicating the degree of dependence upon a few individuals for one or more positions. This could be followed by systematic individual and group development using both in-school and out-of-school sources.

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Admittedly, these ideas imply a readiness to examine broad and deep changes, particularly in values and attitudes at the outset, later in behavior and organization. They offer no certainty, only trial. They may alienate as well as earn us supporters. But they permit us to conserve the best of past practice while venturing into new concepts and testing new experience. They are our major claim to continued public confidence and support.

VII The Exceptional Child

The Unmet Needs oj High School L. K A T H R Y N

Students DICE*

F

we have been concerned with meeting the needs of the handicapped. It has usually been easy to stimulate group thinking about this group particularly when handicaps are obvious, for all of us feel sympathy at the sight of a pair of glasses, a hearing aid, a wheel chair, a pair of crutches. But today I want to introduce you to another handicapped population. Unlike the blind, the deaf, and the lame, whose handicaps are easily seen, in this population the handicaps are hidden. In most instances the handicaps are hidden under a thick protective coating of conforming group behavior, contentment to be an average student, a workable compensation for lack of educational background; under the cloak of the inevitability of military training and the resiliency and buoyancy of youth which make it possible for this population to say, " O h , we'll get along anyway." OR MANY YEARS,

* Director, Harrisburg,

Bureau of Special Pennsylvania.

Pupil

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of Public

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Unlike the blind, the deaf, and the lame, in most instances the handicaps of this group are situationally engendered, not congenitally or hereditarily derived. This group have been handicapped situationally by mass education in a totally verbal school, by crowded classrooms where learning deficiencies are accumulating, by narrow curriculum offerings, by misguided attitudes toward youth, by a lack of opportunity within present existing schools to develop aptitudes and abilities along lines of personal interest, financial possibility and employment opportunity. Also, unlike the blind, the deaf, and the lame, in many instances we, the educators, are handicapping them. Education describes itself as a process whereby youth is prepared for effective living and for making a living. For many years, particularly in the secondary school, this process has been almost exclusively verbal, general, and cultural, a preparation for the so-called next step into college or professional training. But two things are happening: one, not many of our students are taking the next step, some because they cannot, some because they will not, and many because they do not want to; and second, changes are occurring. Civilization today is a matter of new ideas, of new machines, of new ways to work, and new plans for living together. Science, mathematics, and work are taking on new significance. The demand for trained workers increases daily. The secondary school is called upon to face up to a re-evaluation of its function, its methods, its organization, and particularly its curriculum. Allegheny County schools must, like all other schools, face up to this challenge. We must look again to curri?u}um revision in the high schools and the development of technical schools and programs for youth with aptitude along special lines and for whom opportunities for post-high school training are remote, if not impossible. With all this in mind a comprehensive study of the aptitudes, abilities, and post-high school plans of high school seniors was undertaken. This study was devised to serve five purposes: one, to explore through the use of standardized tests the abilities of high school students in order to look objectively at the range of ability and aptitude of those who would graduate in June 1958, from the Allegheny County public high schools; second, to consider their educational and work plans in order to sharpen the perceptions of counselors and teachers as to the wider significance of individual differences; third, to relate

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observed aptitudes to school plans and employment opportunities; fourth, to provide statistical data based not on a population in California, Kansas, or New York, but based on a real live population of our own adolescents in our own schools, to support the need for extending the offering of the secondary schools to include technical types of education; and fifth, to indicate areas, should such emerge, in which secondary education as a whole may need improvement. I shall give you just a very brief description of the experimental setup? After a very exhaustive study of the literature on aptitude testing and a study of the manuals of aptitude tests, particularly as to their reliability and validity, and after a study of the local opportunities for employment and job finding in this area, a test battery was set up which took three hours to administer and tested aptitudes in five general areas of aptitude which we believe to be significant for the youth of Allegheny County. Included in this battery were tests designed to measure scientific aptitude, as related to such courses as laboratory technician and nursing; artistic aptitude, as related to such courses as cosmetology for girls, design and construction for boys; verbal aptitude, as related to the application of learned principles to specific problems; clerical aptitude looking toward a better type of preparation for the students who go into the world of business; engineering aptitude, as related to the skilled and semi-skilled trades. Fourteen high schools agreed to participate in this study and the students who participated were selected completely at random. There was no attempt to stack the cards either in favor of the good student or the poor student, in favor of the academic student or the commercial student or the vocational student. The fourteen participating high schools were asked to submit an alphabetical list of the names of the students who were graduating from high school in June 1958. Every fifth name on these lists was selected to participate. Thus, the students who are in this study are included on this random sampling basis by accident of initial of their surname. I said a moment ago that this study was to be carried on in fourteen schools. The data which I am going to give you cover only thirteen schools because the tests were administered in April and early May. One high school in which the tests were scheduled to be given decided to withdraw from the study because it seemed to the administration that a favorable impression at commencement would take precedence over more

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information about the students from that school. So the testing periods were replaced by commencement rehearsals. Now meet the experimental group. They were 433 seniors graduating from thirteen high schools in a one-quarter segment of Allegheny County. They were between the ages of seventeen years, one month and twenty years, ten months. They were generally physically fit— about twenty per cent wore glasses, two said they had hearing losses, one said he had a cardiac condition, and one had a wooden leg! In most instances they were bright, as I will show you later. They were well dressed, they were conforming, they were pleased with themselves ; they were eager to participate, full of life, and ready to talk about life. They were ambitious in some cases, they were frustrated in many cases; they were uncertain about the future; they were seeking guidance. Some of them were able to blame their parents and their teachers, many of them were able to blame themselves. They were hunting answers to burning questions; they made up a good cross section of teenagers as we know them today. They were to graduate from prescribed courses. They had plans, they lacked plans, but they knew what they would have liked to do if the facilities had been available, if the attitudes had been right, and if there had been greater freedom of choices. The tests administered to these 433 students fell in three general areas. There were ability tests, both of verbal and nonverbal general intelligence; tests of aptitude in five areas, mentioned previously; and tests of previous learning in terms of arithmetic and reading skills. Each student completed a questionnaire in which he described himself and rated himself as to his use of his abilities in the preceding years of school and gave a description of his future plans for further education and choices of jobs and professional opportunities. Now I want you to meet two of the 433 and know them intimately. First meet Helen and consider with me the profile of her test scores. She is an academic student in a large high school and one of the eight students in the total 433 who rated herself above average. She has just passed her seventeenth birthday, is slight in build, well dressed, well groomed, an easy conversationalist, a fine type of teenager, is popular with boys and girls of her age group, and physically strong. She is an only child. Her father has been dead for several years and she and her mother share a small apartment. Her mother is employed as a secre-

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tary. This mother and daughter read and play together and make many plans for Helen's adult life. Helen would like to go to college but she knows it will be a financial struggle. She wants to be a social worker, a teacher, or a nurse. Her test results show that she has aptitude in any area and could follow academic pursuits or technical pursuits and be successful in either field. The deciding factors for students like Helen should be their own personal interests. High schools would be lucky if all students were like Helen! Now I would like you to meet George who is in an academic course with average and below-average grades. He cannot spell academic—· "a-c-n-e-d-i-c-k." He has repeated three grades and is now nineteen and a half years of age. He is out of step with his parents and with his teachers. His test scores show that he is high in terms of ability but low in terms of achievement, with little or no aptitude in any specific field. George wants to be an electronics engineer or, believe it or not, a high school English teacher! And so it goes! Each student has his own constellation of ability and disability; each student has a need for guidance along lines of his o w n ; many students need new courses, new direction, new outlets if their potentials are to be developed and utilized profitably. All of the 433 students in this group now have high school diplomas. They vary widely. Test results indicate that the lowest verbal I.Q. was 72 and the highest was 159. One asks at once, if the high school met adequately the needs of the student with the I.Q. of 72, what happened to the student with an I.Q. of 159, and vice versa? Eleven of these students had verbal I.Q.s of less than 90; 252 had verbal I.Q.s between 90 and 110; and 120 had verbal I.Q.s from 110 to 160. This is most startling when one recalls that only eight of the entire group rated themselves as above average in high school grades. As we move into this technological age, we can no longer be content to measure ability in terms of verbal I.Q. alone. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the distribution of nonverbal, or performance I.Q.s. In this particular study the lowest nonverbal I.Q. was 59 and the highest was 164. Seventy-three of these students had nonverbal I.Q.s below 90; 256 had nonverbal I.Q.s between 90 and 110; and 104 had nonverbal I.Q.s between 110 and 165. Again, one is impressed by the range of ability indicated and the limited opportunities in the usual high school to meet the needs inherent in this range.

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In order to know more fully this total population and to show you that the two students to whom I have introduced you individually are not alone in these categories, consider these data. The results of this study indicate: That 83 of these students showed, on selected tests, aptitude to do either academic or technical work; they are equally capable in both broad areas and able to make the choice of a professional or technical field in the light of personal interests and available opportunities; That 196 of these students showed, on selected tests, outstanding technical abilities in one or more of the areas in which we tested; That 71 of these students showed, on selected tests, average and belowaverage ability academically but have technical or vocational aptitude at the skilled trades level; That 28 of these students showed, on selected tests, ability only at the semi-skilled trades level; That 29 of these students showed exclusively verbal aptitude. This finding, I wish, could be emblazoned on your hearts in letters of red for it shows that of this total group of students graduating, to a large degree, from courses exclusively verbal, only seven per cent are exclusively verbal students by aptitude! That 26 of these students show no aptitude along technical, vocational or academic lines. There are data, also, to indicate that this group is not only handicapped by limited opportunity to elect courses in line of aptitude, but is also handicapped in other significant ways—the handicaps of unrealized opportunities. Seventy per cent of the 433 students in this study read below the forty-fifth percentile for twelfth grade students. This means that three and one-half out of five were reading somewhere below the tenth grade level. Also, forty-six per cent of these 433 were in the same dilemma as far as mathematics were concerned. These findings are staggering; they are sobering; they are serious. They cause us to stop and reflect on what we have done with ourselves, but more particularly on what we have done to those u p o n whom the doors of the school have already swung shut! In other academic skills we see still more signs of unrealized opportunity. Two of the students in this study could not spell correctly the name of the high school from which they were graduating; 11 of them spelled incorrectly their district of residence; 75 of them spelled in-

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correctly the job which they hoped to take when they leave school, and included in this 75 are 3 who said that they want to be teachers. Forty of them could not spell the name of the course from which they were graduating. Stated in still another way, the findings indicate that eighteen per cent of the 433 could do anything they wanted to academically or technically; forty-seven per cent of them had special untapped ability in technical fields; fourteen per cent should have been in vocational schools; seven per cent were exclusively verbal; seven per cent function at a semi-skilled level; and seven per cent showed no aptitude for either academic, vocational, or technical work. This, too, is staggering, when we realize that for a hundred years the high school has existed for the academic student, and it is further staggering to see how many of these students might have been much more profitably spending their time in some other area of education more suited to their abilities and more in line with their personal interests. Up to this point you may be very comfortable and leaning back and saying, "Oh, well, they'll go on to college and college will make up for everything we haven't given them." If this is your feeling, consider with me the data concerning the educational plans of students with aptitude for academic and technical pursuits. This represents the three ablest groups—those with aptitude in every area, those with specific aptitude along technical lines, and those with exclusively verbal aptitudes. Of the 83 students who have aptitude in every area, 23, or one in four, expect to go to college; 14 of them, or one in five of these ablest students expect to go into some kind of post-high school training at the noncollege level—comptometer schools, beauty schools, secretarial schools, schools of nursing, armed forces; but of this segment of our high school population, 46 students, fifty per cent or one in two, will go directly from the door of the high school to the door of an employer. In our second ablest group, those students with outstanding technical ability, twenty-four per cent, or one in four, plan to go to college; twenty-seven per cent to a trade school of some type; and, again one out of every two will walk from your door to that of employment. In the group which is exclusively verbal, only thirteen per cent plan to go to college. So if you have any grand illusions about verbal aptitude students and academic students going to college, read these

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figures and ponder them seriously. Nineteen per cent plan to go into trade schools or the armed forces, and sixty-eight per cent, almost three out of four, will walk from your door to that of industry. I have tried to present to you here a rather detailed study of the aptitudes, abilities, and ambitions of 433 students just about to graduate from our high schools. They are your children and my children. I am sure that you recognize by now that they are leaving us with many unmet needs. May I have just a moment of your time to indicate what I feel some of these unmet needs are. First, we can no longer postpone the extension of the reading program into the secondary school. The great amount of reading retardation indicated here stresses again the fact that reading instruction is both an elementary and a secondary school problem and, therefore, both an elementary and a secondary program are exceedingly important. The elementary school makes use of textbooks and grouping to structure itself for the teaching of reading. Children step out o f t h a t atmosphere into an unstructured situation where they are supposed to perform independently with skills that are not yet consolidated. I believe that these figures showing that seventy per cent of this group are graduating below average in reading skills call for a new approach to the reading problem. What is required in the high school is the extension of the developmental reading program and not merely a remedial one. Second, we need the same type of improvement in mathematics, again not remedial, but developmental, in terms of a better foundation for the scientific and business careers which are the inevitable goals and ultimate opportunities for most of the students leaving our schools. This is the scientific age and mathematics is the one essential tool in the mastery of science; we must meet this need. Third, we need to make better use of test results and test devices. We have been smug, in too many American schools, in our measurement merely of ability and achievement in narrow fields. We need to explore aptitudes, interests, and many phases of the individual growth and development of the students who crowd our doors. In many cases the incompatibilities in ability and achievement ratings have been a source of growing concern to many of us. Extension of testing to include many other phases of measurable characteristics may help us to understand these incompatibilities and to recognize that the role

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of school is not merely to measure, but to provide new offerings as the result of the measurement. Fourth, all our students need better counseling and guidance, not only by guidance counselors, but by every teacher who touches, no matter how superficially, the life of the teenager. From us, their teachers and friends, they need not only greater familiarity with the world of work but they also need improved motivation toward better personal expression. All but eight of these 433 students were content to slip into the mediocrity of being average. Personal endeavor, personal standards for good work, personal feelings of sources seem to have been replaced by the pseudo-comfort of conforming to the average. O u r students need more personal goals; they need some personal drive; they need creatively inspired teachers to stand behind them to give them encouragement, the help to rise above mediocrity and to dare to be an individual. Fifth, not only for themselves, but for society as a whole, the fifth need of this group is for help in formulating more realistic plans for themselves both within and for after-school life. These plans should be based upon as much personal insight as we can give to youth in terms of their abilities, their aptitudes, their ambitions, and availability of opportunity, and the sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Sixth, there is need for a new and more enlightened individual approach on the part of the high school teacher—students are not alike, they cannot be alike, they must find outlets for themselves that are not alike. This need is closely related to the next need I should like to mention. Seventh, there is a need, particularly in the secondary school, to re-assess, re-evaluate, and re-interpret our thinking about the meaning of intelligence. We can n o longer be content to measure and talk about a single thing we call intelligence which manifests itself in proficiency with books alone; there are intelligences and they manifest themselves in many ways—in technical pursuits, in sciences, in art, in work, as well as in words. We owe it to the students who come to school to us to know them, not only as verbal students, but along all lines which it is possible for us to consider and for which we can provide. This calls, too, for a more wholesome attitude toward their range of individual differences, rather than toward their lack of ability within the narrow limits of a prescribed plan.

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Eighth, there is a needfor extended curricula at the local school level. Ninth, there is need, and in this we all must participate, to give support to and help in developing a new type of school—a technical school at the secondary level, in line with demonstrated aptitudes, in line with current social needs, and in which students can express not only what they want to do but also what they need to do. Our contemporary way of life calls for this if we are to survive collectively; the aptitudes of youth call for this if they are to profit individually. We, if we are educators, can and must meet the needs of children. This is our professional obligation; this is our moral obligation; this is our democratic obligation. We can and we must meet the demands of modern life. Each day the press bombards us with information about the need for trained workers in many technological fields. This lack in our social structure is our concern. This too, means to educators a professional, a moral, and a democratic obligation. We dare not placidly turn these responsibilities away from our doors to the private trade schools or rest smugly on the hope that they will go to college —they do not and may not want to go. Recently, in assuming the presidency of the John Hopkins University, Milton Eisenhower made these two statements: "The brains of American youth are our greatest national asset" and "In our American youth lies the balance of power for democracy." We can and we must abandon our traditional academic narrowness. We can and we must seek new avenues of educational experience for children. We can and we must cherish youths' strengths and help minimize their weaknesses. We can and we must experiment and explore with them a wider range of educational opportunity. We dare not lose them. We must think of their future, and plan for them a better, and a brighter, and a fuller day.

Treatment oj Psychological Casualties among

Elementary

School Children RUTH S T R A N G *

ROM T H E S T A N D P O I N T of the teacher there are two main aspects of this problem: (1) mental hygiene first aid in the classroom and(2) recognition of serious cases that should be referred for special services. Certain conditions in the classroom are conducive to prevention and rehabilitation of disturbed children: a situation in which they feel accepted and wanted, tasks that they can do successfully, and warm friendly relationships with classmates and with a teacher who shows that he cares for the child. In many ways the teacher can create these favorable conditions:

F

By listening to the child By understanding his needs for affection, acceptance, a balance between independence and dependency, security, values and standards, guidance, and control * Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia

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By understanding why the child behaves as he does and how he feels By helping him gradually to gain self-control By putting him in a small congenial group of children of his age who will listen to him and react normally to his behaviour with genuine praise or blame By encouraging friendships By skillful teaching By building self-confidence and self-esteem. Teachers are also in a position to note downhill trends in a child's behavior. A c o m m o n sequence is: an unsuitable curriculum, failure in his work, behavior problems, truancy, delinquency. Psychological casualties can be prevented much easier than they can be rehabilitated. These are some of the danger signals: Tenseness and general restlessness and inability to concentrate A constellation of problems rather than a single annoying little habit Long continued manifestation of the undesirable behaviour Intensity of the behavior Pervasiveness of the behavior Illness and absence from school that seems to have no physical basis. If these children are recognized in the first stages of their trouble some modification of the curriculum, instruction, the classroom atmosphere and relations often prevents psychological casualties. With suggestions from the specialists, the teacher can handle the problem in his classroom. In other cases the child should be referred to special services that are available in the school, the school system, community, or state. The first line of defense is the classroom. It is not only first but also fundamental, because it is in the group that children learn techniques of living that they can apply all their lives.

How Much Can We Teach Mentally Deßcient MORTIMER

Children

GARRISON,

JR.*

τ A RECENT conference on research and diagnosis in mental defiL. ciency the statement was made that teachers were not getting what they need from the diagnostic disciplines, particularly psychology. The present tendency of the diagnostician to do his work in a clinic and to make recommendations with little real understanding of the everyday problems faced by the teacher was contrasted with the work of Itard, Seguin, and Witmer. These pioneers not only endeavored to arrive at a diagnosis but followed through in treatment, with the result that the difficulties in communication now seen between the teacher and the psychologist and psychiatrist did not arise. In order to improve this situation and to give the teacher meaningful material to work with, it was suggested that they be turned to for diagnostic work and that they again be trained to do psychological testing. Another recommendation would require physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists to add an additional year or two in

Λ

* Children's Bureau, U.S. Department

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education and, perhaps, an educational internship before they could make recommendations about the treatment of a retarded child. This is already being done to the extent that the school psychologist is required to be not only skilled in diagnostic techniques but to have acquired "educational credits and some teaching experience." While this undoubtedly tends to reduce the extent to which communication is hindered by psychological jargon in diagnostic reports and gives the psychologist an understanding of what questions are important to the teacher, it does not answer the questions inherent in the topic of this paper. At one time it was possible to answer the question, " H o w much can we teach the mentally deficient child" by pointing to tables which showed the average level of occupational and academic achievement to be expected of retarded children, depending on the I.Q. Typical of these is one which states that children in the I.Q. range of 50-75 will probably be able to reach the 4th or 5th grade in special classes and will do some sort of subsidized work. Other such tables give a more detailed breakdown into specific skills and occupations such as dish washing, dusting, painter's helper and the like. Unfortunately, the special class programs now operating throughout the country seem to be full of children who do not fit the specifications in such tables. A child with seizures, hyperactivity, emotional disturbance or some combination of such factors presents problems which make it impossible to predict ultimate achievement with any degree of accuracy on the basis of I.Q. alone. Actually no one seriously considers an examination complete which is restricted to an intelligence test. The psychologist will endeavour to determine the individual's adequacy in several dimensions and in his summary and interpretation of the results these will be inter-related. Statements about etiology, social maturity, and personality frequently require the use of concepts which are not well understood by the teacher, and the psychologist's recommendations are frequently so phrased that they might be read as a description of the conditions under which the child may hope to utilize his potential without any statement of how these conditions are to be obtained by the teacher. While the psychologist reports valuable information on how the child reacts to failure, whether he tends to withdraw or to become aggressive, he usually makes very few recommendations about what teaching techniques

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or devices are most appropriate. More often than not, the teacher is left to work out her own procedures through trial and error. This situation has come about as a result of various forces of which two seem to be of major importance. First, research in mental deficiency, possibly as a result of the old custodial orientation, has been aimed primarily at etiology. This has had many important and potentially useful results. The most general of these is the recognition that the mentally retarded are not a homogeneous group and, by implication, that different methods and goals may be necessary, depending upon the etiology of the condition in the child being taught. Second, again, a reflection of the custodial orientation, this work has usually been carried out in institutions without much financial support. The research and teaching centers, the universities, have had little contact with the institutions and as a result, the mentally retarded have tended to be ignored by students in favor of more apparently exciting, more "glamorous," and better supported fields. For example, the psychologist's interest has been absorbed by general theory construction in learning and personality. This trend was accentuated by the increasing clinical emphasis during and following the Second World War which focused on the emotional problems of young adults. As a result, a whole generation of clinicians (and not only in psychology) was trained and oriented towards psychodynamics and psychiatric research with very little exposure to the problems presented by children and even less to the mentally retarded. Paradoxically, this, too, has had its good results. The interest in treatment and rehabilitation in the field of mental health has made itself felt in the area of the mentally retarded. In addition to trying to teach youngsters as much as possible so that they might to some degree be productive, every effort is now being made to help them maintain themselves in the community. Such a goal raises questions which have no readily available answers. During the period when academic psychology was developing its theories of learning and personality, little research of this sort was being done with the retarded. With the exception of the work of Strauss and his associates, little effort went into finding out whether different etiological groups perceived and learned differently or had special difficulties in concept formation associated with etiology. Most investigators were conducting diagnostic studies, endeavoring

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to identify differences between groups. While many studies dealt with differences between organic and familial etiologies on some psychological test, few studied differences in learning and none investigated such a topic as teaching methods appropriate to groups with auditory versus visual perceptual difficulties. In short, the research on etiology was not followed by research in an applied sense on methodology. Before the question, " H o w much can we teach the mentally deficient?" can be answered, a considerable amount of work of this kind must be done. There are two lines of approach to the problem. One is to determine what goes into learning certain kinds of tasks or subject matter and to determine empirically the limits set by the various kinds of difficulties besetting the retarded child. This represents an extension of the approach which tells us that a child with an I.Q. of 50 is only likely to go just so far. A second approach is to analyze the abilities of children who, on present measures, appear to be about the same and yet differ in their achievement. The classic question for this model is why two individuals with similar I.Q.s may be found in later years to have had radically different degrees of success in independent living. With either of these approaches the result will be that critically important variables for later control and manipulation will have been identified. Another series of problems concentrates on events affecting the children rather than on something in the children which affects their relation to the world around them. In this case one might study social adjustment or learning as a function of treatment, special class versus other administrative arrangements, verbal versus visual cues in teaching, foster home versus institutional placement, and so on. Whatever the approach, it is certain to be complicated by shifting criteria. 1 We have no absolute standard for defining mental retardation. This is clearly indicated when one compares the characteristics of those who have been considered retarded at one point in time versus another, or in one country versus another. 2 The conditions affecting the application of the label must also be investigated and taken into 1 A Special Census of Suspected Referred Mental Retardation, Onondaga County, New York. Technical Report of the Mental Health Research Unit, New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, 1955. 2 A. D. B. Clarke, A Symposium: "Social Adjustment of the Mentally Deficient," I. Recent English research, American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 295-299, September, 1957.

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account. There will obviously be differences in the ability of people to fend for themselves, depending on economic conditions or, perhaps, on what the community will accept. 1 This is the major criterion problem which leaves the goal of education indeterminant to the extent that the criterion keeps shifting. These problems are already under investigation. Thanks to the efforts of the N A R C , the parents' association, important steps have been taken to increase the number of investigators and to plan for a long-term sustained effort. 2 Funds have been made available through the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for research, rehabilitation, training of personnel, and increasing clinical facilities 3,4 . These activities range from the basic theoretical level through the very practical applied service areas. The range of projects and specialists involved is as complex as the problem itself. In the long run this ferment cannot help but get rid of the notion that we know all about the "feebleminded." As the number of qualified people interested in the retarded increases, we will begin not only to answer the question how much can we teach, but how much of what can we teach, in what manner, for what purpose, to whom. All of us have at least one, if not two generations of work to make up. 1 S. B. Sarason and T. Gladwin, "Psychological and Cultural Problems in Mental Subnormality: A Review of Research," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Vol. 62, No. 6, pp. 1115-1307, May, 1958. 2 R. L. Masland, "The Prevention of Mental Retardation: A Survey of Research," American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Vol. 62, No. 6, pp. 991-1112, May, 1958. 3 Mental Retardation: Programs and Services of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Fiscal Year 1957. Washington: U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1958. 4 Research and Other Projects in Mental Retardation Currently Being Financially Supported or Assisted by Operating Agencies of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Washington: U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare 1958.

What Foundation jor MARION

Democracy?

J. S A C K *

I

T is PRECISELY because gifted children have unusual ability that special provision does have to be made for them. Such special provision is essentially democratic and is in harmony with our accepted ideal of educating each child to the maximum of his potential. We say over and over that one of the axioms of education in a democracy is equality of opportunity. Strangely enough in practice we have too often interpreted this equality to mean identical opportunity. As Marian Scheifele 1 puts it, "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals." If we are agreed on the necessity for different opportunities for different children then the task remains to work out some agreement on the " w h a t " , " h o w " and " w h e n " of what is to be done. There are three methods of adjustment more or less commonly practiced, namely, acceleration, special classes and interest groups, and enrichment in the regular classroom. F o r elementary school children it is the * Director, Oak Lane Country Day School of Temple University. 1 Marian Scheifele, The Gifted Child in the Regular Classroom, p. 44 New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1953.

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last mentioned practice that seems to me to offer the most valuable development of the child and of society. I should like to say here, too, that the danger I see in segregation of the gifted applies only to the elementary school. When children reach junior and senior high school I believe we are obligated to segregate them for part of their studies. I believe this as strongly as I believe that in the elementary school they should not be segregated. I believe that the best interests of the individual gifted child and of society are served by having heterogeneous grouping during the elementary school years. The Philadelphia studies in intercultural relations give evidence that the basic attitudes toward self and towards people are formed during the early years of childhood. Attitudes of respect for and appreciation of others, attitudes of neighborliness, attitudes free of racial bias are the foundation of character and behavior. The evidence 1 in the field also indicates that behavior is formed as a result of the kind of living we experience, not as a result of the things people tell us to do or not to do. If during the elementary school years the gifted children are taken from the usual classrooms and brought together to be taught at a more rapid pace and with greater intensity they are at the same time cheated of the experiences that are necessary in developing good citizens and of knowing at first-hand the tremendous variety that exists among people. Individual differences are a source of strength and beauty. The heterogeneous elementary classroom is the place where children of all abilities can learn to respect and appreciate and help one another. To verbalize the importance of this respect is one thing. To know it so that respect for people is part of one's make-up is another thing. The first kind of knowledge is easy to give, easy to commit to memory, and easy to give back, the second kind can be obtained only through the first-hand experience of living with many different kinds of people. In the heterogeneous elementary classroom a cross-section of the people's children learn to think together, to plan together and to work out those plans. Here in classrooms of great diversity there is the action and interaction, the ceaseless interplay of many differing personalities, tastes, interests, desires, 1 Viz. Helen Trager and Marion Radke, They Learn What They Live, New York: Harper, 1952. Kurt Lewin. Ronald Lippitt and Ralph K. White, "Patterns of Aggressive Behaviour in Experimentally Created Social Climates," Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 10, pp. 271-299, May, 1939.

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cultures and histories. This intermingling of all kinds is essential for us in the U.S.A. It is true that we are dedicated to helping each child develop his potential to the fullest. We are none the less obligated and, in my opinion, should be equally dedicated to maintaining and strengthening our American democracy. The individual does not live in isolation. Society has contributed much to him and he is responsible for considerable service to society. The kind of sharing that goes on in the structure of the heterogeneous elementary class is richer, of many more different levels than is possible in a homogeneous group, and is more demanding. The urgency of the times demands not only identification of and provision for the gifted, but rather helping each child find and use constructively his talent. The emphasis needs to be on thinking, inventing, devising, discovering, originating, and expressing ideas in unique ways. Attitudes of respect for others and acceptance of those differing markedly from oneself do not occur simply by having children heterogeneously grouped together by age. Poor attitudes, contempt, intolerance, impatience, disdain of those less able than oneself can and do develop in heterogeneous class groups. The point is that only by being with others different from oneself can one learn at first-hand and so understand that basically people are more alike than different. Separation during the elementary school years on the basis of I.Q. prevents both groups—the superior and those less than superior, from having the direct contact which is necessary for genuine understanding. Separation of the gifted children from their peers of lesser ability creates a barrier between them. Each group is an unknown quantity to the other. That which is unknown often becomes that which we arc afraid of. That which is unknown we suspect and distrust. By segregation we create another "you and they" division, another "in and o u t " group. We dare not risk fostering such negative and divisive attitudes among us. Such division is disastrous for two reasons. First, it affects all the children of all the people. Second, it occurs at a time in the child's development when the lines of personality are being laid and the shape of character is being determined. What occurs during these formative years in elementary school colors the rest of the child's life. The need is for men of good-will, for men and women who are genial, resilient, big-souled, world-minded humanitarians dedicated to

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lives of service in furthering the principles of self-government, reason, and conscience. Men and women of this calibre cannot come from classrooms where homogeneity mitigates against the interaction of differences. Stimulation given to slower children by their brighter classmates has been observed time and time again. This stimulation and interaction never occurs to a high degree if the gifted are removed. All teachers can recall the times when the less able child has had an idea not thought of by his more intelligent classmates. Together they bring the idea into being. This creative release of ideas within a group reaches great power wherever it is encouraged and permitted. The value to those experiencing this kind of creative interaction cannot be overemphasized. Teachers who have watched, on the one hand, the delight of the less able in seeing his idea accepted and then actually materialize and, on the other hand, the heightened respect of the gifted for his fellow worker, know the tremendous therapeutic value of such an experience for the individuals concerned and for the group in which they operate. This is the stuff of which genuine mutual respect is made. This mutuality is not possible when gifted and not so gifted are not together. The differential between the gifted and the rest of the children is not so marked during the elementary years. The content of the various fields of knowledge is not so difficult as to make the differences in potential as obvious as they are later. This is not to say that children do not early recognize those who are the "bright" ones. They do and they should. It is merely to say that with an understanding teacher it is easier to have a self-contained, heterogeneous classroom in the elementary school than it is in the secondary school and that there is no reason why we should not foster the heterogeneity in elementary school rather than prevent it. In conclusion, I believe that if we want our American democracy to continue and to improve we dare not segregate our gifted during the elementary school. To do so is to raise up generations of children who are more than likely to resent, distrust and possibly even to hate the intellectuals, the artists, the inventors. To do so is to raise up generations of gifted who are likely to be contemptuous, unfeeling and possibly even inhuman toward the mere average and the dullard. The specialized, mechanized world needs multitudes of workers at all levels of skill. We are truly i n t e r d e p e n d e n t . . . as the poet has said, Q.Q.A.E.-G

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" N o man is an island." We cannot survive as a free people without the foundation stone of mutual respect and acceptance. To segregate the gifted in the elementar}' school is to lay the groundwork for barriers of misunderstanding that does not lessen with the years. To keep the gifted in the regular classroom and develop those classrooms so that there is greater freedom to follow special talents, to explore interests, more opportunity to draw conclusions and to make generalizations, more encouragement to experiment, more flexibility, is a mandate we dare not ignore.

Gijted Pupils in the Elementary RUTH

T

HE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

School

STRANG*

years are critical f o r the gifted child.

Precious time may be wasted during these years when they are eager and quick to learn. Attitudes t o w a r d school a n d t o w a r d learning are built. D u r i n g the elementary grades emotional difficulties m a y develop which block learning. Giftedness is not something bestowed at birth like the gift of a fairy godmother. T o be sure, heredity is i m p o r t a n t . T h e child b o r n with a certain quality of brain a n d nervous system is able to relate a n d organize his experiences f r o m his earliest years. But the way in which the child interacts with his environment determines whether he develops into a gifted person. Preschool is a prelude to school achievement. T h e child w h o h a s a lucky c o m b i n a t i o n of heredity a n d favorable early childhood experiences can be easily identified as a gifted child—broadly defined as one whose p e r f o r m a n c e in any line of socially useful e n d e a v o r is clearly superior. O u r m a i n question is: W h a t can the elementary school d o to help

* Professor

of Education,

Teachers

College,

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University.

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these children develop their potentialities ? Should they be admitted earlier? How can they be identified? How can teachers and administrators provide suitable experiences for them ? What special guidance is necessary ? How can teachers and parents co-operate in providing a favorable total environment for the child ? Early Admission

to

School

The intellectually gifted child is mentally ready for school one or two years below the chronological age usually set for admission to school. Should he be permitted to enter early and thus save a year of educational preparation for his vocation, usually one of the professions requiring seventeen or more years of study? In Great Britain children do enter school about a year earlier than they do here, and begin early to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic. However, an experiment conducted during World War II showed that early school entrance was not necessarily an advantage in the long run. Children who could not attend school during war years caught up with the others when they did go to school. The answer to the question: Should our gifted children enter school early? is—"It depends." It depends on the physical development of the child. Is he tall and robust for his age? Is he mentally alert and superior in verbal facility ? Is he socially more mature than children of his age? Is his home environment lacking in intellectual or social stimulation ? Does the kindergarten and first grade teacher recognize and provide for individual differences ? The same questions also govern the decision to accelerate a gifted child at any time during elementary school years. The decision should be made individually for each child. Readiness for school cannot be determined by any single factor such as physical size, ability to count, to write his name, to read, or to get along well with other children. His total pattern of development should be considered and how he relates himself to his home, church, and neighbourhood environment. 1 When a teacher has thirty or more children in his first-grade class, it is impossible to let a four-year-old talk whenever he wants to or be as physically active as he needs to be. The teacher must maintain a 1 Anton Brenner, "Nature and Meaning of Readiness for School," MerrillPalmer Quarterly, III, pp. 114-35, Spring, 1957.

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certain amount of order in the large group. These necessary restrictions are irksome to the little child whose muscles are still growing rapidly and whose urge to be physically active is still great. Several experiments of admitting gifted children to school at an early age have indicated good adjustment on the part of certain children. However, unless the classes are small enough, the equipment suitable for large-muscle activities and many exploratory experiences, and unless the teacher is aware of individual children's needs, it would be better for the gifted child to enjoy the freedom of a good home and neighborhood environment until he reaches the official age of school entrance in his community.

Discovering the Gifted In the more informal activities of the kindergarten and first grade, the teacher has his best opportunity to observe signs of giftedness. What are these signs of superior mental ability? The teacher is more likely to find them in the attractive, physically well developed, socially responsive child than in the stereotype of the bookworm—the puny, pale, nearsighted, unsociable child. The intellectually gifted child's superior language ability will probably first attract the teacher's attention. He knows the meaning of more words than the average child and uses these words appropriately. His definitions of words are likely to be precise and comprehensive. During "telling time," when the children recount their week-end or vacation experiences, the gifted child's story is not only likely to be well expressed but also to show keen observation and memory of his experiences. During free activity periods the gifted child may show exceptional initiative, responsibility, self-direction, and persistence in the activity. His products often have an original and creative touch that is lacking in the productions of other children. For example, a first-grade teacher's first clue of giftedness in a certain child was his use of transparent wrapping from a candy box for windows in the cardboard house he was building. He also added a garage to his house. In free activities special talents in art, music, drama, the dance, and social relations may be discovered. The socially gifted child finds ways to make others feel successful and happy. There is little quarreling and crying heard in his group.

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During periods of study and instruction teachers will observe some children who learn quickly, see cause and effect relations, finish their work quickly and correctly and want to go ahead of the group. They like to work intensively on a project that interests them. They are good in solving all kinds of problems and can readily be taught to state the problem clearly, find good solutions, and test their solutions. They like to talk and enjoy class discussions. Sometimes the teacher has discovered gifted children through their searching, startling questions. When children are free to select their own books, gifted children will often choose and read with comprehension books two or more years above their grade level. One gifted child in the third grade was identified by the teacher through his reading of science books two or three years ahead of his class. Although gifted children show a developmental reading pattern common to other children, at any one time, their reading interests resemble those of children a couple of years older than they. The range of their interests in general is also wide. They make more significant collections and have more hobbies than most other children. However, identification of gifted children by observation is not so easy as it sounds. Teachers tend to overrate the obedient, docile, neat child and overlook the gifted child who is not doing well in school because he is bored by dull books and by repetition of lessons he already knows. If children come from a background in which only a foreign language is spoken, if they have no one to talk with at home, if they have few interesting experiences to talk about, then their language development is likely to be retarded, especially in the lower grades of elementary school. Older children may become so absorbed in one subject that they neglect others. Antagonism toward the teacher or parent may cause the child consciously or unconsciously to resist learning. F o r these and other reasons teachers' predictions are sometimes faulty. According to Newsweek for March 4, 1957, the admissions committee at St. Paul's school in Concord, New Hampshire, was asked to consider the application of a thirteen-year-old boy, Spencer C. Thompson. The committee examined the boy's previous school record and weighed the statements made by his former teachers. All twelve members voted to reject him. After they had made this decision the admissions director disclosed the fact that this was actually the

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school record of Winston Churchill during his first years at Harrow. Dr. Witty goes on to say that "the credentials the committee had rejected were those of the lad who was to become one of the greatest statesmen in British history, an inspiring political leader, a famous historian and a winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature." 1 Because of these errors in identifying gifted children, teachers should check their judgment with the results of standardized intelligence tests. The I.Q.s teachers find on the pupils' cumulative records are usually based on group intelligence tests. Since these scores may be affected by low reading ability; emotional disturbance; physical defects, especially of hearing and vision; lack of stimulation in home background, experience in taking tests, and other factors, teachers should use the results cautiously to form tentative hypotheses, never to make an important decision about the child's placement or program. Achievement tests should be used similarly as part of the total information available about the child. Since no really adequate tests are available to measure special talent in art, music, mechanical ability, and in drive, creativeness, and social ability, we must depend still more on observation and on appraisal of samples of the individual's work. Admission to the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, for example, is based to a large extent on auditions judged by experts in each field. Another problem is to distinguish the pseudo-gifted from the naturally gifted child. Because of special coaching and pressure on the part of parents, some children will show many of the characteristics described. Sometimes coaching can be detected by the psychologist giving the test. For example, one youngster after being given a word of approval for an exceptionally good response to the ball and field test said, " D a d d y showed me how to do that last night." Discrepancies within the test and between the test results and the child's performance raise questions as to the accuracy of the total I.Q. Some parents give intensive instruction in word meanings and language usage, which may raise the child's vocabulary score. If the idea of being superior has been imposed upon an average child by ambitious parents, he is likely to show signs of severe tension, anxiety, rebellion or other behavior problems. The pseudo-gifted child, in addition to these 1

Paul Witty, "Every Parent and Teacher a Talent Scout," National Teacher, Vol. 5! No. 10, pp. 4-6, June, 1957.

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feelings of anxiety, is less spontaneous, creative, keen in solving new problems, original, and sociable than the truly gifted child. Teacher's Approach to the Gifted Child Having identified the gifted children in his class through his own observation and examination of the cumulative records, or through information passed on to him by the school guidance person or psychologist, the teacher is faced with other problems: How to provide the experiences the gifted child needs without making him feel conspicuous or singled out. How to give him special opportunities without causing him to be labeled "teacher's pet." How to give other children the chance to answer questions and assume leadership responsibilities without dampening the gifted child's eagerness to share his knowledge, use his initiative, and take responsibility. How to avoid pushing and pressuring a gifted child too much. There are limits to what a bright child can learn. If he is confronted with too great difficulty, experiments have shown that he may become disturbed, rude, or disobedient. In their enthusiasm for helping the gifted child, teachers are often tempted to call on him exclusively or, on the other hand, to ignore his eagerness to answer. This situation usually arises in the general class discussion or traditional recitation type period. If children are working on projects, units, activities or contracts, there is much more opportunity for them to participate. In fact, the opportunity to talk is increased by as many times as there are sub-groups formed within the class. The wise teacher avoids putting the gifted child in the limelight. The wise gifted child does not push himself forward. He is modest; his influence is often indirect rather than being exerted in positions of leadership. If a child does become impatient with other children's ineptitude and wants to do everything himself, a suggestion from the teacher is often effective. Gina, for example, was always selected for the leading parts in plays and projects. One day when she was telling the teacher about a dance she was going to give, the teacher said, "Why don't you teach some of the other children to do it?" " O h , " said Gina, "it takes them so long to learn." "It takes some people a long time to learn to share with others," the teacher remarked.

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Gina gave her a searching look, but said nothing. A few days later she had carried out the teacher's suggestion. She had taught other children the dance, while she stood in the background. There is no danger in pushing a child beyond his ability if the teacher allows him to initiate many of his own activities and watches his reactions to any assignments given. When a child begins to become tense and anxious and loses his eagerness and enthusiasm, the nature of the task should be studied to find out the reason for the child's change in attitude. Gifted children are capable of considerable sustained effort and often become interested in a book or activity in which they were not originally interested. The Gifted Child in a Regular Class Adequate provision for gifted children can be made in regular heterogeneous classes under three conditions: if the teachers are gifted teachers; if the classes are fairly small—not over twenty-five; if a variety of instructional materials is provided, as wide in range as the interests and abilities represented in the classes. The teacher will provide some experiences for the entire group, such as instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic needed by all pupils and discussion of a common experience or of projects or studies reported by individuals or small groups. He will also make possible a variety of small group experiences, some based on common learning difficulties to be overcome, some on interests, some on ability—a small group of gifted, for example, working together on an advanced phase of a subject. The teacher will also provide for individual projects or contracts carried out on the child's responsibility and at his own speed. The following are a few examples of different kinds of special activities in which gifted children have engaged in the field of science: A second-grade gifted child, interested in science, became the " a u t h o r i t y " for the class. For example, when a child brought a baby racoon to school, the children's many questions about the animal were answered with this child's help. He prepared a report on racoons, and presented his pictures and pertinent information in a way that all the children could understand and enjoy. Gifted children in the third grade made special interest booklets, which extended the knowledge they had gained in class. Q.Q.A.B.-H

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In a f o u r t h grade t w o able learners served as c h a i r m a n and coc h a i r m a n for a special science period held one day each week. T h e y considered a n d checked requests of children w h o wanted to p e r f o r m a n experiment in class, a n d took responsibility for the period t h e m selves if no one else was ready to report. In the fifth grade, children were encouraged to read a b o u t experim e n t s they could p e r f o r m , try t h e m out at home, a n d then d e m o n strate them to the class, thus increasing their knowledge of science a n d getting practice in speaking before a g r o u p . A n o t h e r gifted child in the fifth grade gave talks on science topics to the second grade. T h e gifted pupils in a sixth grade were especially interested in the scientific principles governing the o p e r a t i o n of a n u m b e r of gadgets which the teacher d e m o n s t r a t e d and explained. A n elementary science fair stimulated m a n y pupils, although n o prizes were offered, to prepare and d e m o n s t r a t e science projects during the year. A science r o o m equipped with microscopes a n d other necessary e q u i p m e n t appeals to gifted children. T h e r e they classify, label, a n d investigate various mysteries of nature that they have collected. E a c h science unit completed in class is summarized in illustrated form a n d displayed in the science r o o m . Similarly, projects in creative writing, health a n d other plays, murals and posters, songs written for special occasions, are carried on by gifted children in m a n y regular classes at present.

The Gifted Child in Enrichment

Classes

T h e r e are various provisions m a d e f o r gifted children to work together for p a r t of the school d a y : A library-discussion period once a week A special advanced section of a subject A seminar type of group taught by a special teacher for a single period a day Additional classes in foreign language, music, art, and other subjects A half day spent with the heterogeneous group and the other half in the group of gifted children. An example of this type of program is the Cleveland major-work and enrichment classes, tailor-made for

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children with high I.Q.s. W h e n children seem b o r e d in regular classes and are beginning t o lapse into indolent habits, they a r e invited t o enroll in a m a j o r - w o r k g r o u p . T h e decision rests with t h e m and their parents. F o r play periods they g o with all t h e o t h e r third-grade children, a n d participate in the r h y t h m b a n d a n d other regular school activities. But f o r half the day they are in the i n f o r m a l a n d stimulating a t m o s p h e r e of the m a j o r - w o r k class. K n o w i n g w h a t each child can do, the teacher, provides work suited to him. In class discussions they share their experiences a n d ideas. E a c h h a s a project of special interest t o him, but he also participates in g r o u p subjects. T h e children take responsibility f o r budgeting their time a n d p l a n n i n g their w o r k . Their goals serve as incentives. Consequently they d o n o t feel that they are being p u s h e d by adults. A c c o r d i n g to D o r o t h y E. Norris, director o f this p r o g r a m , the k e y n o t e is enrichment. T h e y b r o a d e n their regular p r o g r a m b u t d o n o t e n c r o a c h u p o n the w o r k o f the higher grades. A m o n g the activities in w h i c h they e n g a g e are the f o l l o w i n g : Singing F r e n c h songs such as " A l l o u e t t e , " playing F r e n c h games, a n d giving F r e n c h plays R e a d i n g along lines of special interest—exploration, poetry, biography, science Literature study g r o u p in which they learn to interpret a n d appreciate good literature of all k i n d s Writing b o o k reviews f o r the school p a p e r T a k i n g trips t o places of interest U n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d appreciating the abilities of classmates as thev work together, t h u s developing personally a n d socially. U n d e r s t a n d i n g of people of different b a c k g r o u n d s a n d family patterns, those w h o lived in t h e past, a n d those w h o live in other countries.

The Gifted

Child in a Special

School

T h e p r o g r a m f o r the gifted in the H u n t e r C o l l e g e e l e m e n t a r y s c h o o l has been a d m i r a b l y described b y Hildreth. 1 L e s s w e l l - k n o w n is the project that w a s carried o n in o n e o f the N e w Y o r k City e l e m e n t a r y s c h o o l s under the principalship o f M i s s Elsa Ebeling. T h e a i m s in this elementary s c h o o l were t o h e l p the intellectually gifted children t o 1

Gertrude Hildreth, Educating Gifted Children at Hunter College School. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952.

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develop socially and emotionally as well as to stimulate them to work up to capacity. Teachers helped pupils build good health as well as systematic habits of study and self-direction. Independent thinking and creative expression were encouraged. Teachers were concerned with education for the worthy use of leisure, good citizenship, and a sense of service. Within the limits of their experience and knowledge, the older pupils became aware of some of the changes and problems of society. These are, in general, the aims of education for gifted children, whether they be taught in special schools, special classes, or in the regular classes of the elementary school. 1 1

Paul W i t t y , The Gifted Child, B o s t o n : D. C. H e a t h a n d C o m p a n y , 1951. Paul W i t t y , Helping the Gifted Child, C h i c a g o 10: Science Research Associates, 1952.

VIII Secondary Education

Television and the English ALEXANDER

Teacher

SHEVLIN *

of this decade, the average American was watching television about three hours daily. We are hearing a great deal of talk these days about the menace of television. Here, too, there is justification for alarm and protest. One group of parents and teachers, watching all T.V. programs in New York City during a single week in January, 1953, counted three thousand, four hundred twenty-one separate "acts or threats" of violence. A committee of parents watching television in the Chicago area for one week enumerated the following: seventy-seven murders, fifty shootings, thirty gunfights, seven kidnappings, fifty-nine fist fights, two knifings, twenty-two sluggings, three whiplashings, two poisonings, two bombings, three murders by poison darts, a man hit over the head with a shovel, a man killed by a train, one attempted lynching, one man clawed by a tiger, one suicide, a girl locked in a vault, a boy beaten by his uncle, a man thrown over a cliff, three men locked in a safe, and one man blown up in an ammunition dump. I also wish to call your attention to the current issue (October 13, 1958) • THE B E G I N N I N G

* Radio-Television

Supervisor, Philadelphia Public

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of Newsweek. The cover depicts a small boy gazing absorbedly into a gigantic television screen out of which emerges a hairy hand holding a huge revolver. The picture is captioned, "TV—the most Violent Season: Bang-Bangs, Banshees, Bone Crushers." During the past year, there has also been a great deal of controversy —controversy that has even engaged the attention of a Congressional committee—about the use of subthreshold effects in television and the menace of such stimulation on the minds and habits of Americans. There is, of course, validity to the accusations that have been made and the fears that are felt concerning these negative aspects of television. However, this does not mean that the educational advantages of television should be ignored or passed over lightly. For both in- and out-of-school viewing, T.V. is a superb enricher. Since October of last year, network television has presented Pinocchio, Green Pastures, Twelfth Night, Wuthering Heights, A Tale of Two Cities, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Life of Samuel Johnson, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and Junior Miss—to name but a few productions based on titles found on high school reading lists. We have also seen recently, plays by Tennessee Williams, Carl Sandburg playing his guitar and discussing Lincoln, Oscar Wilde's Salome, and a wealth of other material presented on such programs as "Omnibus" and "The Seven Lively Arts." In previous television seasons, viewers have enjoyed excellent performances of The Lark, Peter Pan, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard II, and Hamlet. Network Television also holds great future promise and interest to the English teacher and his students. During 1959, for example, NBC plans to present four color telecasts that will give a sweeping view of present-day America as the narrator recites the poetry of Walt Whitman. As English teachers, we should remember that our students' viewing of programs like the ones just mentioned has had desirable concomitant effects. Most significant of all is the fact that reading has been stimulated. When a program based on a novel is presented on television, sales of that book skyrocket. In some cases, booksellers report being deluged by orders for novels that have had no previous demand for decades. Librarians throughout the country report similar reactions. Television is a superb enricher. It is an equally good motivator—

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not only for reading, but also for writing and for oral English. Documentaries such as "The Twisted Cross" and "Nightmare in Red"— the first about Naziism, the second about Communism—or the Wide Wide World series (I am thinking at the moment of the program dealing with American attitudes towards science and scientists) can serve as excellent springboards for discussion and for writing assignments. Another fine discussion and composition motivator is the NBC series on "Conversations with the Elder Wise Men," featuring such personalities as Robert Frost, Bertrand Russell, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sean O'Casey, and Arnold Toynbee. So far, I have talked about network television, about programs beamed to the general public that could be utilized by the resourceful teacher of English. I think that we are more or less in agreement about the value of such programs. However, when we discuss another aspect of television—programs designed for in-school viewing—we are treading on more controversial ground. For practical purposes, I shall, in this talk, refer to television programs designed for in-school viewing as "educational television." To some of us, educational television conjures up visions of George Orwell's nightmare world of 1984 with the ubiquitous image of Big Brother dominating lives and minds. To others, educational television is a slogan of hope—a panacea that will rid us of all the ills besetting present-day education. Educational television represents neither of these extreme views. In the words of Dr. Frank Stanton of CBS, "Television can help education, but it cannot be education." Such important learning elements as information, stimulation, and inspiration—these can reach the student via television. However, television in itself cannot teach; it is merely a means of teaching. The classroom teacher is indispensable to the learning situation; he can never lose his unique place opposite Mark Hopkins on the log. The classroom teacher is needed to clarify and expand the material presented on an educational television program. He is needed to cater to his students' individual needs and differences—to challenge the gifted and assist the slow. In the Philadelphia Public Schools, television programs based on curricular offerings such as mathematics and science recognize the classroom teacher's indispensibility. Although periods are forty-five minutes in length, the television program occupies a maximum of only twenty-five minutes and is presented only three times weekly. The

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rest of the period, and, in addition, two full forty-five minute periods, belong to the classroom teacher. Committees of classroom teachers also plan the content of each television program and evaluate it carefully and frankly. In other words, these programs are designed to help the classroom teacher, not supplant him. I cannot emphasize this point too strongly. Many teachers ask, "How effective is television as a means of instruction?" Our own studies in the Philadelphia Public Schools, conducted by the Division of Educational Research, indicate that television is highly effective. We find that children remember what they have seen, and that their rate of retention is high, even for the academically untalented. We find that the interest and follow-up activities of children are stimulated, and that their background is broadened. We have also found that television is an effective reviewing instrument. Teachers report that pupils watching educational television programs improve in pronouncing, spelling, and understanding new words. Supervisors and directors of specialized divisions state that educational television programs have special value in demonstrating new procedures and techniques, making the in-service value of these programs to teachers important. Research carried out on a national scale has resulted in equally positive findings. The Armed Forces, particularly, with their special problem of training a great many people of varying ability quickly, have looked carefully and objectively into the merits of educational television. I recommend to your attention, for example, the studies made by the Navy 1 and by the Army Signal Corps 2 which confirm the effectiveness of television as a means of conveying factual information. The question arises, "What is there about television that makes it such an effective medium of instruction ?" The answer is, television combines sight, sound, motion, and immediacy into one forceful unit. In addition, each student watching the screen has a seat directly before the teacher. Not only are the eyes of the television instructor 1 R. T. Rock, Jr., J. S. Duva, and J. E. Murray, Training by Television: A Study in Learning and Retention, Port Washington, Long Island, New Y o r k : Special Devices Center, United States Navy, N A V E X O S P-850-2, 1951. 1 J. H. Kanner, R. P. R u n y o n , and O. Desiderato, Television in Army Training: Evaluation of Television in Army Basic Training. H u m a n Resources Research Office, George Washington University, Technical Report N u m b e r 14, 1954.

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directly on the student, but also the visuals being shown are frequently shown more effectively than they are in the conventional classroom. Often, the lesson prepared by the T.V. teacher is more carefully planned than one prepared by the classroom teacher: it may use a greater variety of visuals, for instance, many of them rare and unique objects that the classroom teacher would not have time to get himself. In addition, the television teacher, teaching an average of three lessons a week, has much more time to prepare his presentation than does the classroom teacher. I wish to emphasize that I am not comparing both types of teacher to the classroom teacher's disadvantage. Each type serves an important purpose; each complements the other; each does not compete with the other. The English teacher in a mass communication world should therefore not view the products of the mass media with scorn or suspicion. These mass media can furnish him with additional resources that will help make his own teaching more varied, interesting, and effective. But what about the negative aspects of television that I mentioned earlier in my talk? These, too, can be of value to the English teacher. In Areopagitica, Milton wrote: Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field . . . Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Mediocrity in television programs can furnish grist for the English teacher's mill, because his role, in a mass communication world or in any other kind of world is that of guiding his students to recognize, appreciate, and honor truth.

The English Teacher and Mass

Communication

MARCUS KONICK *

T

in to-day's world of mass-communication is apt to be bewildered. He was educated in another era. He is accustomed to find the best that has been thought, whether information or pleasure, in the pages of a book or, if he is fortunate, in the actual presence of a few gifted individuals. He grew up, to be sure, with the phonograph, movies, and radio, but is not quite prepared for a world in which both children and adults spend hours a day, frequently entire evenings, in a half-lit room, speaking to each other only in hushed monosyllables, staring into a luminous box, where all may be delighted by modern versions of the Shakespearean zany, by hundreds of murders a week, by cartoons, and by odd fragments of knowledge which can bring a lucky participant a fortune in ten minutes. Many have laid aside even the newspaper for a capsule version of the world's events. Theatres and movie houses have closed their doors. One need HE E N G L I S H TEACHER

* Chairman, vania.

English Department,

Central High School, Philadelphia,

212

Pennsyl-

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hardly even read directions on a box of seeds to discover how to have a beautiful garden. The viewer need no longer even get up early to go to church. The English teacher finds that students only half trust his dictum that a modern civilization demands that its people be literate. On the positive side of the ledger, this pedagogue is comforted by seeing and hearing an occasional Shakespearean play, great dramas of all periods, dramatizations of great novels, an occasional serious discussion, and other educational programs. Literature, grammar, diction, and public speaking have been taught by radio and television. Our great poets, novelists, and playwrights have read from their works and been interviewed. The English teacher is aware that if he cannot wean his classes from the television set, he can do better—he can help to turn the dial and stimulate his students in the selection of better programs. To his job of developing good taste in reading has been added the obligation to teach good taste in listening and viewing. He can, with motivation, assign viewing as well as reading. He and his students can analyze a radio or television drama as well as a novel. All this is not as easy as it sounds. Although splendid programs are available on the commercial airwaves, the sad truth is that there are seldom more than a scant half-dozen a week. Moreover, most are broadcast on a sleepy Sunday afternoon (when anybody with sound limbs is riding in an automobile), very late at night (when our students ought to be in bed), in the middle of the afternoon, or early in the morning. Commercial radio and television, for all their promises to the Federal Communications Commission, and to the public, are more interested in making money. This requires large audiences, and these broadcasters are convinced that the average viewer has a mental age of twelve or fourteen—and not a very intelligent junior adolescent at that. They believe that scarcely rehearsed, chatty, homey programs, soap operas and horse operas, murder stories and quiz—or rather, give-away—programs are more palatable than "culture"—said with a sneer. There is no question that careful choice and commendatory letters can do much to give us worth-while programs and offer the viewers a far richer cultural world than our ancestors ever knew. Unfortunately those who write such letters seem to prefer the worst that broadcasters can offer. The person with good taste too frequently considers the writing of " f a n " letters beneath him. Even the organizations to which he belongs are likely to avoid flashy publicity and the

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appearance of pressure. An example of desirable procedure has been offered by the National Council of Teachers of English which has offered awards for the best television programs. However, most local organizations do little to ask either that networks and regional stations offer better programs or retain those they have. The teacher in his classroom has here a splendid opportunity to motivate his students in letter-writing of a sort which would involve their interest. Instead, we selfishly accept the Shakespearean play for which a sponsor has paid perhaps a hundred thousand dollars, don't say thank you, or even ask for more. No wonder broadcasters think that good programs are unappreciated. We, as English teachers, must not neglect our responsibility for molding public taste and for strengthening support of better programs. Until we do, the programs we desire will remain more a promise than an actuality. It is natural that the schools themselves should step into the breach. After our first failure to seize regular frequencies, we tried to take advantage of the generosity of the commercial stations. We gladly accepted fragments of time which were either not valuable or difficult to sell. The commercial stations used these gifts to satisfy the requirements of the FCC. However, competition in radio became ruthless with the establishment of more commercial stations and with the competition of television. The cost of facilities and technical staff made any gifts of television time extremely valuable. In some cases the time offered to schools was withdrawn. In every case, because of the expensive staff required, time was seldom available for adequate studio rehearsal, and many a school television show, despite careful preparation outside the studio, went on the air with little or no preparation on the part of the studio staff. Educators have since tried to secure special channels on U H F and VHF which the FCC had reserved for them. Educational stations have been established here in Philadelphia, in Hagerstown, Maryland, In New York, Pittsburg, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Many programs of considerable interest to English teachers have been broadcast. Despite the inconvenience of adapters, the future seems to promise a healthy development in this area. The time has come to evaluate these educational programs, whether prepared and broadcast by commercial or special systems. First, the quality has generally been good. While occasionally an expert has

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talked over the heads of his audience, a discussion been too elementary, or some distortion of idea has resulted from the extreme compression of time, programs have been much more carefully planned than the average classroom lesson, the speakers or readers have demonstrated far more than normal command of language and voice, special devices have offered what most classrooms could not, great dramas have leaped into life from the printed page, and we have had the privilege of seeing and hearing the outstanding literary men of our age. As a result of Professor Floyd Zulli's literature course over WCBS-T.V., book stores were flooded with requests for the books discussed. Similar results have been reported elsewhere, so that broadcasts have actually increased reading. Experiments have shown that students can profit from the enriching experiences brought to them by radio and television. The cultural standards of the nation can be raised. Obviously the best use of a radio or television program in a classroom requires careful planning by the teacher. The great damage is that the inefficient among us will make the broadcast into a rest period for ourselves. Radio and television are in most minds associated with effortless pleasure on the part of the audience. While use of these media guarantees at least initial attention, it does not insure careful, analytic listening and observation. Therefore we are once again presented with the challenge of improving these skills. It follows that a broadcast may be of little value unless the classroom teacher has oriented it carefully into the course of study and the pupils' experiences. The students must know what to look for, must be prepared with a vocabulary at least adequate enough to comprehend the fundamental ideas, and must be aware of the use to which their new learning will be put. In other words, there must be careful teacher and pupil preparation and follow-up. During the broadcast itself, the teacher must be alert to note signs of confusion on the part of individual pupils, points which can be further developed, and enthusiasm which should be given a constructive outlet. The teacher must be aware of the special opportunities every broadcast gives for teaching good speech habits, improving vocabulary, and stimulating appreciation of good programs. Written composition, oral discussion, reading, and research can be stimulated by a good radio or television lesson. The teacher himself can improve his own techniques by observing the master

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teacher. Every teacher who has used these programs well can testify to the increased enthusiasm of even normally lethargic pupils, to the visualization of normally abstract ideas, to the development of many sorts of concommitant values. However, there are mechanical difficulties which prevent the widest use of these rich opportunities. First, in spite of the fact that adequate advance notice is usually given, broadcasts frequently cut across scheduled times of class change. Since there are seldom advantages to making each school a law unto itself in such matters, one would expect that educators with the serious intention of taking advantage of broadcasts would place all schools on similar bell schedules. Secondly, only a small percentage of classrooms is equipped with receivers, and frequently classes must be moved to special rooms, with concommitant waste of time and disruption of conditions most conducive to good listening. Third, all English classes on the same level do not meet at the same time. Therefore, to take advantage of a given broadcast, the entire school roster would have to be rearranged. Fourth, it will only be accidental that a single program or even a series will fit any given couise of study. The only obvious solution is that, as has already been done on many occasions, the teachers should help to design the radio or television course, and that the classroom curriculum should be modified to follow the broadcasts. These mechanical difficulties are trivial compared to more fundamental problems. It is amazing how much even experienced educators can forget about the learning process. One who has sparked a very important series of educational programs in this area and indeed all over the country has stated that "nation-wide use of classroom television can save our public schools 100,000 teaching positions and $500,000,000 in salaries annually." Among conditions he advises are packing three hundred or so students into an auditorium where they can observe perhaps half a dozen large-sized sets in operation at once. This, he believes, would require less supervision. His program further requires most of the class time to be spent looking at television and one or two recitation periods to be scheduled each week. Since this obviously requires more than the usual strip of five periods per week spent on a major subject, the already over-crowded roster becomes the despair of roster-makers. Another writer believes that the teacher shortage can be relieved by releasing a teacher from regular duty to

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prepare one television lesson a day to which all other teachers will tune in. Strange arithmetic! Another writes that, while the students are watching a telecast, the teacher can help individual students who have difficulty. That teacher should certainly provide lively distraction! And how is he going to reteach material which he is himself seeing televised for the first time—that is, if he can spare time f r o m his puzzled pupil. Let us be perfectly honest. Television and radio cannot relieve the teacher shortage. Every teacher of experience knows that careful supervision is necessary, at the least, to maintain that perfect discipline essential to proper reception. It is the rare teacher who can control a group of three hundred or even one hundred when lights are turned low. G r o u p s like the National Council of Teachers of English have advised that no class should number more than twenty-five. Much more fundamental is the fact that all research has demonstrated repeatedly that we must make allowance f o r individual differences. In a democracy it is our responsibility to develop each individual's special potential and to provide him with opportunity to contribute to his group and to learn how to co-operate with it. In the teaching of English especially the need to develop the individual's speaking and writing abilities demands individual attention which even now it is almost impossible to give. Personal practice on the part of the pupil and careful supervision and criticism on the part of the teacher are essential. Y o u cannot broadcast these things. Neither the personal nor the social values of education must be sacrificed to a false idea of economy and a superficial glamor. The prime components of a good education are a well-equipped teacher and a receptive student. We all know that questions not asked when they occur to a student are likely to be forgotten. A post-broadcast session will not unearth all problems, for the students who are most confused, who comprehend the least, ask the fewest questions. The good teacher, in a normal classroom situation, sees the lacklustre glance, the indifferent eye, the puzzled expression, the distraction which indicate a problem. The good teacher in the usual classroom does not simply deliver a lecture nor does he pass his students through the pages of a text. A good classroom situation is a working relationship between teacher and pupil—a give-and-take, a living development f r o m m o m e n t to moment and person to person toward

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an established goal. It includes even wandering from the point to explore a promising by-way—and these excursions frequently make the most indelible impression upon the mind of the student. How long is it since the blind advocates of education by television have actually taught in a classroom ? Although I do not think that any conscientious educator advises the substitution of a television set for a teacher, even a tendency in this direction is dangerous. Our classes are already too large. The time for individual instruction is already too limited. There is already some tendency to exaggerate the satisfactory results secured in many places as a result of teaching by television, and there are always some people who think that the small percentage of the national income now spent on education is too much. A gullible and ill-informed public can dangerously hamper the efforts of serious educators. There is no doubt that many broadcasts provide valuable learning situations and are superior in quality. Thence springs another problem; anyone who misses the unique moment is deprived of it forever. It cannot be repeated unless it is recorded. We might therefore ask whether all the money, time, and talent being used for educational radio and television might not better be spent on making and purchasing films and recordings. Over 18,000 educational films have already been produced. Olivier's Hamlet is available to schools only at prohibitive rentals. How much could be done with the quarter of a million dollars required yearly to operate an educational television station whose products wither with the hour that gives them birth! If this money provided films, there would be no problem of scheduling, films could be reshown to facilitate analysis, the course of study would not be subject to the dictates of a central authority, and the personal element vital to genuine education need not be lost. Since in English, unlike social studies, the immediacy of a real event taking place miles away is not essential, one of the most significant advantages of radio and television is thus unimportant. The advantages of film over television were stressed frequently last January at the Pennsylvania Governor's Conference on the Improvement of Instruction. Unfortunately many of the films which are now available are oldfashioned in costuming, make-up, and film technique, are inappropriate to a given area and type of population, and do not demonstrate

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the best teaching techniques. These defects are largely symptoms of inadequate budgets, which mean poor scripts, direction, and acting, as well as insufficient re-takes and poor editing. There is a clear need for making new and appropriate films on some subjects. Fortunately, good films of great plays and novels do not go out of date so rapidly and represent solid investments for many years. We are already deeply indebted to the committees which have co-operated with the Teaching Film Custodians in preparing adaptations of suitable commercial films. However, we are still in need of a co-ordinated program which would stimulate local school systems, universities, and other groups to make new films, would perhaps undertake preparing them directly, and facilitate exchanges of films as they are completed. Television, radio, films, pictures, and recordings are all valuable audio-visual aids in the classroom—but that is just what they are— aids. The essential solution of the basic educational problem lies in the teacher-pupil inter-relationship. Our civilization is in some aspects already overmechanized. While pupils, their teachers, and parents can derive great benefit from the media of mass communication, it is, as usual, the more intelligent person who profits most. Experiments in Levittown, New York, and in Wisconsin have demonstrated this. But what of the inferior student? He derives less benefit than from the usual classroom situation. Furthermore, where the results are best the question arises whether it is because the teaching is superior or because of an inherent advantage in the medium. It is certain, however, that every pupil, bright or dull, can profit from careful personal direction. There is one field in which radio and television are without peer— as an educational medium for adults. Many grown-ups who would not think of enrolling in a college or adult school are willing to turn on their television sets at 6.30 a.m. or on Sunday afternoons to lecturedemonstrations on Greek drama, Shakespeare, or diction. Housewives and mothers otherwise immured from intelligent mature conversation perhaps for days on end find educational programs a welcome relief from the give-away shows, the maudlin epics of the boudoir, and the inane house-keeping programs of the mid-day. Good programs are a way of making inroads upon the cultural desert of many homes where there are few books, no music, and little awareness of art—where no one ever attends a play, concert, or lecture. One consequence of this terrible lack is that almost half of our better

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students never think of attending college, not because they lack the means, but because their families lack the mental horizon. Another is our unpreparedness for technical competition with other, seemingly less privileged countries. It is in the field of adult education, then, that radio and television can make unparalleled contributions. N o r should we overlook the pre-school child and the invalid to whom television and radio are truly educative media. We should be foolish indeed to turn our backs upon the wealth of experience that radio and television can bring to us. However, in the classroom, time will not permit us to do everything, and we must weigh the advantages of electronic media against other teaching devices. The ideal is a vital teacher in a classroom, aided as efficiently as possible by all the ingenuities a modern technology can offer.

The Contribution

oj Dance in the

Education oj Children The Need for

Communication

Creative Release for the

and

Individual

MARIAN CHACE *

HE YOUNG MAN who, a few minutes earlier, had been standing with slumped shoulders and limp dangling arms now was standing with a straight lifted body and a confident smile. Suddenly he spoke,

T

"If I could have kept moving, I would not have had to be sick."

A young woman who is now about thirty-five years old and has been living with an invisible wall about her for many years looked up as she was stretching her muscles in a dance session and said, * Dance Therapist at Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, D.C., and Chestnut Lodge, Rockville Md.

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"The time to do dancing is when you are three or four years old." I asked, "You mean that you think that dancing is only for children ?" The answer came in a positive tone, "Oh me. A person should start then and keep on always." When one hears mental patients talk of their feelings about the importance of movement and its meaning to them one realizes that the ability to express feelings in action represents health to them. A considerable part of the education of a child, especially in the United States, consists of divorcing him from the use of action for the expression of his feelings with the substitution of words to express them only partially. This transfer from direct action to verbal symbols is a necessary function of the aculturation in education if the child is to live in our present social environment with any sense of acceptance by the majority of people. The ideal of courteous behavior and the accepted standard for evaluating a "cultured, well brought up person" in this country, is one who speaks words with little change of facial expression and with as little use of gesture as possible. Even the flambuoyant orator in the pulpit or on the political stump is no longer acceptable to his audience, and his listeners withdraw from such a melodramatic display. We listen today to the speaker who can present ideas in a cool, dispassionate intellectual form. The child must learn rapidly to make the transition from his natural mode of expressing feeling to that of the adult world about him. Many times in the process he becomes overly static in his actions and often becomes very fearful of the results of any display of emotion, no matter how natural this may be. Perhaps there would be no danger even so if our bodies really became useless as a means of communication and we transferred totally to the learned verbal symbols of speech. We give up screams, crying, grunts, and other nonverbal sounds except at times of great emotional stress. We continue, however, to express our feelings in our bodies, largely because this is outside of our awareness. As Dr. Plant has said, Verbal modes of expression lend themselves to the intellectual processes whereas what one calls the psychomotor tensions are the modes of emotional expression.

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At the end of a day when we have had to spend a number of hours in intense thinking, we are aware of pain and tension in the back of our necks. Again, on a day when the children in the family or the schoolroom have been more than usually demanding, noisy or quarrelsome, we will probably feel physical weariness throughout our whole body and be vaguely aware of tension in the muscles of our face. We may even be aware of a tick at the side of our eyes or a tightening of our jaw. Will we also be aware of the many expressions of frustration, anger and defeat that we have been revealing in myriads of ways and more and more clearly as the day progressed, no matter what words we may have been using? Similarly, in moments of excitement or happiness, we restrain ourselves from any physical expression of our feelings except with our most intimate friends or family. Yet, according to John Martin, Nature has so constituted us that movement is the medium in which we live our lives. As I have worked in the field of dance as a means of direct communication through the past several years with a growing alertness to the expression of emotion in body action, I have been amazed at the disparity between words and action in the majority of people. We have centred so completely on verbal symbols that the communication in action passes unnoticed by the majority of people. At times I become fascinated hearing and watching two dissimilar conversations occurring simultaneously among people living and functioning in the normal world. Among mental patients there is apt to be less disparity. Fortunately, in this restricted culture of ours, there is a medium of expression for us to use which is built out of our natural need to communicate with body action. In the dance, freedom of action is demanded and is socially acceptable. Many other aspects of dancing are very important and are more frequently discussed, however. Dancing is valuable as a group activity, as a tool for poise in social situations, a means of developing body co-ordination, posture, and above all as fun. Dance is sometimes called the matrix of the arts and can be very useful in aiding a child to develop an appreciation of music as well as an awareness of music forms and dynamics, or a sense of line and form in drawing and modelling. It is possible to encompass the arts and show the usefulness of dance as adjunctive to each.

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These attributes are often stressed in a discussion of dance with a too frequent neglect of the role which is of major importance to the child. Education is basically for the development of a body of intellectual knowledge from which to reach out in specific areas in proportion to an individual's curiosity and comprehension, as well as the learned skills related to this body of knowledge. It is unfortunate that as a person develops in the use of verbal symbols and the academic learning acquired through their use that his ability to express emotion is often conversely repressed to the vanishing point. This is doubly unfortunate when it is unnecessary. In many cultures throughout the world, dancing is still a part of the cultural pattern of the community. When this is true you will also see strong physical action being used to accompany the words which are being spoken. Facial expression, arms, hands, the whole body come strongly into play, so that the total person is involved in what is going on. Much of the insecurity that is felt in our culture might be alleviated if we gave more free expression to our feelings and accompanied our words with appropriate expression in our bodies. Children have a limited vocabulary at best for many years. They are still to a large extent dependent on their natural modes of expression. It is during this period of transition that they are forced to restrain their natural impulse to use action rather than words. Dance, then, can be a useful tool to avoid the feeling of isolation that is so prevalent among the majority of people. If, as the young woman at the hospital stated, we could start dancing at three or four—or rather continue to dance after three or four until we are too old to move, perhaps we would not find it so difficult to let others know what we feel when we are with them. We would know where to find them. One of the assets of the person who is mentally ill, or the child who is disturbed is that he is able to express his feelings in movement and action. This is often frightening to others, not because this is basically wrong, but because of the strange code of almost immobile social behavior. It is really good to be able to know immediately what a person is feeling as well as what he is thinking. Then one has a feeling of meeting and knowing the total person. Expression of feeling in body action, whether in natural ways or in dance action, does not lead to unrestrained, chaotic action, nor does it lead to uncontrolled "acting out". Quite the contrary is true. One

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needs only to participate in a dance session with a group of emotionally upset people to know that this is the case. It is after a dance session at the hospital, not before, that one is aware of relaxation, use of verbal speech in a free way, and a warmth of companionship among the participants. This is true not because they are patients, but because they are people. Because dance is not a spontaneous part of the community life, it should be a part of the cultural training of all children, so that they may retain a sense of a total person participating with others. Dance is not an extra frippery. It is rather a real essential to the educational and cultural growth of the child.

The Importance oj Fostering Expression in the Secondary

Creative School

ITALO L. DE F R A N C E S C O *

W

in The Scientific Monthly, Fenton Turk referred to the present ferment in education as "The American Explosion." He said: R I T I N G SOMETIME A G O

Once in a great while the tempo of progress quickens. A society explodes in a flood of new ideas, new tastes, new standards. A fresh and exciting age emerges, marked by changed attitudes, changed customs, changed goals— and alive with expanded opportunities for those who first recognize the new signposts and have courage to follow them.1 We are reminded of at least two other great explosions: one, referred to as the Golden Age of Greece; the other, somewhat closer to us, referred to as the Renaissance. In each instance the explosion sprang solidly from deep-seated roots and from the accumulated experience of * Director, Art Education, State Teachers College, Kutztown, Pennsylvania. 1 Fenton Turk, "Science on the March—The American Explosion," The Scientific Monthly, Vol. LXXV, No. 3, pp. 187-191, September, 1952.

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the people. By comparison, the present interest in educational reorientation may be looked upon as the flowering of slightly over 300 years of American history. The energies, experiences, curiosity, democracy itself, and the obvious ingenuity of our people are the ingredients which have, within the last decade, ushered in what may be termed the American Renaissance. Recent international and scientific events, far from being the cause of the explosion, have served to accelerate it, to give greater force and lend to the drama additional meaning and incentive. The subject for our discussion was selected by those in charge of Schoolmen's Week. That is quite proper, but at the same time, it has given me opportunity to speculate, somewhat, on the reasons for the inclusion of this vital subject in the overall program. It has further led me to speculate on its specific wording. It is a statement in the affirmative, hence a statement of belief. Even more interesting is the fact that the term "creative" has been used rather than "artistic." This suggests a second belief, namely, that creative expression is less parochial than we sometimes think. I also sense that the theme has been chosen because of its relevance in our time, a time of reappraisal, of serious scrutiny, and in a sense, a time of exciting changes in educational thinking. In order to establish a foundation for what I plan to say later, permit me to quote from a very significant document—The Rockefeller Report on Education. Its foreword reads, in part, as follows: There is no more searching or difficult problem for a free people than to identify, nurture and wisely use its own talents. Indeed, on its ability to solve this problem rests, at least in part, its fate as a free people. For a free society cannot commandeer talent: it must be true to its own vision of individual liberty. And yet at a time when we face problems of desperate gravity and complexity an undiscovered talent, a wasted skill, a misapplied ability is a threat to the capacity of a free people to survive. But there is another and deeper reason why a free nation must cultivate its own human potential: such a task reflects the very purposes for which a free society exists. If our nation seeks to strengthen the opportunities for free men to develop their individual capacities and to inspire creative effort our aim is as importantly that of widening and deepening the life purposes of our citizens as it is to add to the success of our national effort. A free society nurtures the individual not alone for the contribution he may make

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to the social effort, but also and primarily for the sake of the contribution he may make to his own realization and development."1 It is abundantly evident from this statement that we are faced with a new urgency—one upon which the survival of our nation depends. Survival is an all encompassing term and I suggest that it involves all types of human endeavours: science, art, and ethics. The Rockefeller Report also seems to infer that what we need is not more of any particular energy or resource, but that what we need must be better. Specifically, what we need is quality in the education of all citizens in order that they may be prepared to meet the crucial problems ahead. The growing concern with the humanities, of which art is one, the concern with values, with the individual, and with the social group, cannot mean the mere addition of new seasoning to old recipes. It must be a renewal of what is inherent and fundamental in the creative spirit itself. The search must be for meaning, for coherence and for unity. Such an organic oneness can and must be discovered through a serious analysis of our present problems, even if it involves going through the labyrinth of diversity of ideas and points of view. Essentially, the objective of the present reform is a phase of the perennial task of democracy to set men free—free from tradition, free from uniformity, free from technical chains, from preconceived ways, and above all, free from dogma. The central scope of the reorientation is to give wings to ideas, rather than to confine them or compartmentalize them for eventual relegation to a new kind of academism. In brief, the need is for creative expression. Reorientation of Art in Secondary

Schools

We have been teaching art in American secondary schools, in one way or another, from the days when Benjamin Franklin founded his Academy in Philadelphia. That span of time represents nearly 200 years of trial and error, one movement following another in succession as the exigencies of the new nation demanded. Willingly art education has adapted itself to the dominant educational philosophy if only 1

Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc., The Pursuit of Excellence—Education and the Future of America, Panel Report V, 1958, N e w Y o r k : D o u b l e d a y and Company,

Inc.

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to serve, to be valued, and accepted as a legitimate field of learning. But throughout its history, although art education has been amenable to reform, it has also developed a corpus of ideas and a point of view of its own—not in conflict but in consonance with and in advance of general educational practice. An examination of the point of view which has grown in influence during the last quarter century, with due allowance for differences, shows that art education, generally, has been striving in a direction which is today acknowledged by other disciplines as the prime element, in the generation of ideas and in the determination of the conduct of men. Nevertheless, together with the entire academic community we are called upon to re-examine our purposes and our approach. Before doing so, it may be well to examine our subject again: The Importance of Fostering Creative Expression in Secondary Schools. An analysis of the subject reveals that at least four m a j o r facets demand our attention: what do we mean by creativity; what are the needs and potentialities of the adolescent; how can art education foster creative expression and what are the obligations of the teacher in the achievement of creative expression. Let us examine, though briefly, each facet in the hope of recognizing the m a j o r tasks which devolve upon us. What is

Creativity?

The most vexing issue facing art educators seems to be the ability to reach even a tentative accord on what is meant by creativity, or creative power, or creative expression. Granting that the issue is a very difficult one and because we cannot resolve the battle of words at this moment, 1 suggest that we put polemics aside and examine several workable definitions which may serve us as a foundation. Granville Read is quoted by Guggenheimer as having described creative power as "that quality of the mind which enables the individual to juggle scraps of knowledge until they fall into new and useful patterns." Guggenheimer, 1 himself, suggests that "creativity exists on different levels and the levels are determined primarily by the quality and degree of attention to totality. Attention to totality depends upon the sensitivity 1 Richard G u g g e n h e i m e r , Brothers, 1950.

Creative

Vision,

p.

148, N e w

Y o r k : Harper and

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of the instrument that is doing the attending, and upon the possession of a sustained motivation to attend." Bronowski 1 makes a distinction between mental processes; this seems relevant He says: " A fact is discovered, a theory is invented; is any theory even deep enough for it to be truly called a creation? Most non-scientists would answer: NO! Science, they would say, engages only part of the mind—the rational intellect—but creation must engage the whole mind. Science demands none of that rich bottom of personality, which fills out the work of art." Perhaps a less philosophical but more scientific approach to the question has been made by Guilford 2 and his associates at the University of Southern California. Through an extensive study, they have identified the human characteristics which, together, make for creativity. The characteristics are these: sensitivity to problems, fluency of ideas, flexibility, originality, ability to redefine or to rearrange, ability to analyze, ability to reach synthesis, and coherence, or ability to organize.

What is Creative

Expression

?

Paraphrased, the writers just quoted, and many that might be quoted, seem to say that creative expression depends on reflective thinking, depth of perception, and an ability to reach new synthesis. If this is true, expression in art, at the secondary school level, then becomes not so much a matter of spontaneous outbursts or meaningless splashes of color as may have been quite appropriate with elementary school children, nor is it meticulous imitation or technical renditions, but rather a qualitative, individualized, type of action upon ideas and materials. The question which may plausibly be raised is whether creative expression can be developed. The answer is a relative yet a positive one. For brevity and also to reassure you, I recommend your investigation of the methods used by Alex Osborn 3 as well as those suggested by Guilford. 4 Regarding art education as it operates 1

J. Bronowski, "The Creative Process," Scientific American, September, 1958. J. P. Guilford, R. C. Wilson, and P. R. Christensen, "Factor Analytic Study of Creative Thinking," Psychological Laboratory Reprint No. 8, Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 1952. 3 Alex Osborn, Applied Imagination, Principles, and Procedures of Creative Thinking, New York: Scribner, 1953. • J. P. Guilford, et al, op. cit. 2

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in the classroom, I shall have some definite suggestions to make later. The Needs and Potentials of

Adolescents

The second facet of our subject deals with adolescence. It is the inevitable, difficult, and persistent problem in secondary education. As such, it demands equally persistent attention in order that teachers may come a little closer to an understanding of the needs, and at the same time, be enabled to assess the creative potential of youths. Only then they will be in a position to effect some re-orientation in current art programs in the direction of better productivity in art, effect some changes in the behaviour of students, and work toward maximum creative development. The nature of adolescence is adequately clarified with regard to the physical and physiological changes occurring at this point in biological growth. The significant emotional stress and strain of the period are also delineated in the literature of psychology and of education. Nevertheless, it is distressing to observe how much lip service is given the adolescent and how little is actually done for him in practice. We are not unmindful of the fact that secondary education has been restructured again and again in order to meet the more obvious needs of youth, and that the curriculum of secondary education has undergone periodic changes. However, it seems that what determines the success or failure of education at this level is not so much dependent on the organizational structure or on the formalized curriculum as on teacher-pupil relationships and on the spirit which motivates the teaching which is done. By way of refreshing our minds, let us look at the picture of a typical adolescent: He is overawed and overwhelmed by the rapid though spasmodic changes which occur in his physical body, changes which portend the new emerging self and which will move him toward adulthood. The unevenness of the pattern and the changes in configuration, coordination, and general appearance are extremely disturbing to him and he manifests his concern in self-consciousness, clumsiness, untidyness, and a general lack of confidence in himself. Yet as he overcomes and accepts some of these changes, he may exhibit restraint, caution, and even good sense.

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He knows that he is economically and physically dependent on parents and other adults, yet seeks independence and freedom of action. He is free from the fear of self-reliance, yet longs for the guidance and counsel of parents and teachers at crucial moments only to revert to a wish for his own resources, his own plans, and his own decisions. He is subject to spectacular forms of rebellion against the authority and the restraints placed on him. Yet, he submits to the rule and ritual of his peers. In dress, manners, speech, and general behavior he wishes to be like them and to conform to their code. At the same time, he longs to be different, non-conforming. Actually, he is seeking approval and striving for personal identity. He dreads rejection in failure, hence he often retreats by avoiding personal or social responsibility. When this occurs, he relapses in the security of childhood experiences such as play, parties, and merriment of a variety of forms. He is periodically courageous but just as quickly relapses into m o o d s and discouragement. He is like a flowing stream, now accepting and now rejecting yet continually becoming different in body, mind, and emotions.

In reality, the uneven and stormy journey from early adolescence to adulthood is an expression of the longing of life for itself. Youth, at first overwhelmed, fearful, and rebellious, gradually evolves into an individual consciously seeking a new adult personality. In the process of becoming, the positive characteristics come to the surface: idealism, a craving for a satisfying life, concern for ethics and morality, optimism, and the dream of the ritual of manhood or womanhood. In the face of such contradictions we are baffled, but surely we should not be discouraged, particularly as we realize that most adolescents seek and want positive guidance. Unfortunately, we are impressed by the relatively few who do not fare too well during the crisis; we are inclined to forget that the majority of adolescents do succeed in overcoming the struggle. Our task is to discover ways whereby the scars may be healed, the stormy path smoothed, and the transition to adulthood made a more bearable journey. What the adolescent needs is trust in his moments of doubt, encouragement of his venturesome instincts, approval of his dissent, and the right to be an individual rather than a conformist. He seeks these privileges in the home, within the confines of the schools, in social contacts with adults and peers, in creative activities within the art laboratory, it is likely that, through

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these positive forms of guidance, the adolescent may recognize that he may be himself, that he may venture into the realm of the imagination, that he is free to try out ideas which are different, and experiment with new tools and new technics in congenial atmosphere and with sympathetic understanding. The greatest gift which teachers may bestow on junior and senior high school youths is the gift of integrity. They are keen enough, all of them, to recognize it in the words, the attitudes, and the teaching which is done. What Can Education

Do?

We turn now more specifically, to the importance of fostering the creative expression of adolescents. For the sake of a focus, we shall continue this discussion only in terms of art, although with minor adaptations, what is proposed would apply with equal force to any area of secondary education. In the first place it is important to foster the creative expression of adolescents because reflective thinking and doing are, as we have indicated, the most important needs in our time. And such fostering should not be directed to the gifted alone but to all typical boys and girls to the fullest extent of the potentialities within them. When speaking of creative expression I do not limit its scope to picture making or the shaping of things material; what I mean is the development of the student's ability to look upon all manner of human relationships as problems to be solved. Creative power manifests itself rather obviously in the art laboratory but it is also present in the science laboratory, in the shop, at the office, on the streets, in the home, in the social contacts of man with man, and in all relationships between man and his external world. In brief, as man lives from day to day, he faces problems which will be solved adequately or inadequately depending on the degree of creative intelligence he brings to bear on the search for solutions. As a consequence of the development of sensitivity to problems and equal effort in the direction of their solution, human life can be bettered, and the conditions of existence improved. Earlier I inferred that art education is not the only means of developing creative power. Nor should it be assumed that reflective thinking and reflective doing are the private domain of art. There are many ways Q.Q.A.E.-I

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and many avenues for their achievement. Happily, however, and this is significant, the nature of art, its mode of operation, and the types of action it demands for fulfillment are such that teachers of art are privileged to work in the most natural and most effective way of stimulating creative expression. The power of art to point up problems and their imaginative solutions have hardly been tapped. For example, problems in interior and costume design, in modeling, in pottery, in jewelry, and other forms of art which relate directly to life and living are all too often presented in the form of sterile exercises rather than as answers to human needs. Painting, the graphic arts, and illustration do not seem to fare much better because they are often subjected to traditional methods and solutions. Because the nature of the adolescent demands it, we should look to areas of living for subject-matter; we should find motivation for the crafts in the needs of the individual student, of the home and the community. Pride and self-satisfaction may then become not simple words, but realities. In the area of creativity, secondary school teachers of art have been laboring under two false assumptions. The first is that excellence of expression is in proportion to the student's ability to master formalized technics and schemes, and to produce quasi-photographic renditions of the visual world. That nothing could be farther from the truth is amply demonstrated by the history of art. In it we see mirrored quite clearly, for those who have eyes to see, the eternal striving of the masters from Giotto to Picasso, to penetrate the inner world of man, the varied and hidden forces of the cosmos and the deepest conceptions of the mind. We may also reasonably ask what are the "isms" in art all about? With minor exceptions they reflect the dissatisfied, even troubled, minds of creative individuals unceasingly in search for better ways and more adequate means of interpreting their inner vision of man and the world. This is not to say that visual realism is incompatible with creative expression; for some individuals it is the natural way, but to assume that visual realism and traditional technics are the only ways, is a denial of the evidences offered by the history of man and his search for that freedom which inheres in both art and science. We may look for further evidence to the artistic idioms of people in other directions of the compass to see that symbolism, technics, and the sense of form are many, varied, and all of them just as valid. Here we might

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find help for the adolescents who lose faith in themselves and in art only because they cannot match a traditional version of art. By pointing out to them that there are many idioms and many ways, and that their way is plausible, we may restore self-confidence and, at the same time, encourage uniqueness and originality. Regarding technics, we are reminded that the Periclean Age and the Renaissance could well mark the apotheosis and the end of Western art. Instead, the artistic triumphs and the excellence of creative expression of those eras merely point to the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, in which man continues to strive, aided by new discoveries, new freedoms, broader concepts and deeper insights. I am not condemning training in technics as such. What I am saying is that technics are the means and not ends of expression; that they are discovered by individuals in their search for the many possible solutions to the aesthetic problems which they face and which they so much wish to solve with satisfaction. The fallacy of much art teaching at the secondary level lies in urging students to mimic mature artists, in forcing students to accept ready-made answers, and to speak in tongues which they do not understand or are not ready to assimilate. The obvious result is that many students assume artistic stereotypes which eventually alienate them from art simply because their need is for personal expression and in an individual idiom which they were not permitted to discover for themselves. The second false assumption which has affected art education adversely at the secondary school level is the notion that excellence is the result of discipline, determined by teachers, in the form of rigid, traditional, and even pedantic routines. T o be sure, discipline is a necessary condition of the creative processes. But, effective discipline is not, and has never been imposed from without. It is effective only when it is self-imposed. It then assumes the form of a compulsion f r o m within, a drive of the creative spirit. It becomes a relentless pursuit after the mastery of tools and technics, a sifting of ideas which lead to the discovery of new aspects of truth and toward individual fulfilment. Only thus will students gain increased insights into life and art. Education, and especially art education for an age of decision, must seek improvement in terms of new depths. In my judgment, this is a professional imperative if art education is to make its proper

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contribution to the kind of total education needed by young people on the threshold of maturity. It is important to foster the creative expression of adolescents because it is the only sound way to sharpen their perceptive capacity to the highest possible levels. For the sake of simplicity, let us say that perceptive capacity is synonymous with sensitivity: sensitivity to details, to differences, to similarities, to nuances, and to whatever comes through the senses. The universal will to express one's self and the ability to individualize, in the visual arts as well as in other pursuits, depend a great deal on the capacity to observe, to assimilate, to incorporate in one's own experience and, eventually, to reorganize for use. The most observant perceive at once the relevant facts; the less observant will ignore them. It is for this reason that some artists have found their niche in the history of world art as is the case with Phidias, da Vinci, Dürer, Cezanne, and Picasso, whereas thousands of others remain unknown. Artists who were sensitive to problems, to uncommon ideas, new concepts, or forms, and acted upon them in a unique manner, are and will continue to be the masters of their time. We should prize highly the work of a student who "sees" more, who "sees" differently, who has a personal way of communicating what he feels, sees, or senses. When the development of perception is properly nurtured and fully realized in the classroom, there will no longer be stereotypes, devices, and cliches. It will be the end of directed teaching. Having referred to the senses, it is necessary to add that perception involves much more. Intuitional, intellectual, and emotional reactions to the world and to situations are very significant in creative development. These reactions are based on deeply-rooted and profoundly personal experience, hence they are the road to unusual design or composition, and may even lead to the personal formulation of new theories and extension of concepts. Such outcomes are to be praised highly because they are the earmarks of the gifted. But whether through sharpening the senses or the cultivation of less observable human attributes the teacher's task is not so much "to teach" as it is to guide students to discover for themselves, and to encourage personal interpretations. When this purpose of art education is stressed, in preference to traditional technics and concepts, it is likely that originality rather than conformity will become the accepted mode, not only in

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art, but in any other activity in which the adolescent may engage. An example of how individual sensitivity operates in the art laboratory was shown a few years ago in an exhibition of the work of Philadelphia students. A photograph of a still-life with flowers and objects was compared to three different interpretations by three high school students. It was clear that one saw poetically, another realistically, and a third subjectively or from within. Obviously, the teacher encouraged personal vision. It is important to foster creative expression in adolescents because it is the surest path to the clarification and extension of concepts and the development of insights. The term "self-expression" is used very freely, particularly by art people, as if it were an ordinary commodity. In a manner of speaking it is, but only if in our intentions we take into account the fact that pupils must have something to express, that they have a clear understanding of what is to be expressed and that they have found, for themselves, ways of expressing what is on their minds and hearts. Unless these conditions are present or are true, mere action with a brush, chisel, or other tool will be energy going to waste. Art, in the proper sense of the term, is not mere force oractivity. It is qualitative, purposeful, and meaningful action upon ideas and materials if only in terms of the aesthetic satisfaction of the individual pupil. Art expression does not issue from a vacuum. It is based on prior and recent experiences, on accumulated knowledges, on clarity of concepts, and on properly developed insights. For example: a tree is a "lollypop" to a child in the kindergarten or to a first grader, but it must eventually show a trunk, branches, leaves, a certain height and character. As typical junior and senior high school pupils grow mentally and creatively, their concepts of form and space must likewise grow. If the tree continues to be "lollypop" or if its proportions, details, and relationships in space do not change, obviously, the conceptual development of the student is at a standstill. Concepts are significant in that they reveal and interpret the pattern of thinking, of feeling, and of knowing about the world and the self. Insight, on the other hand, is the growth in ability to see solutions to artistic problems. Art experiences are never the same when allowed to occur in freedom. Each time a pupil sets to work, he sees the problem, sorts out its parts, analyzes them, then quickly finds the answer or

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solution. T h e answer may involve character, composition, or technique. His solution to one aesthetic problem may not, and perhaps should not be, the same each time. I f the pupil's concepts and idea a b o u t things or situations grow normally, he will realize how an old concept may be used in new ways and it will follow that his artistic solutions will be suggested by his larger insight. This is perhaps an over simplification o f the matter, yet it points out that the more creative a pupil is, the more ways he will find to express himself. T h e less creative student is m o r e rigid and will follow old paths rather than to venture. Our task, as counselors o f young people, is to insure that their concepts and their insights are continually stimulated to seek new ways and new a r r a n g e m e n t s ; in other words, new solutions. A group o f senior high school students were taken outdoors to sketch. W h e n they returned to the classroom an exhibition and discussion of their work was quickly developed. T h e following day, after brief motivation, they were asked to go to the same spot, examine the situation again and c o m e up with a different interpretation o f the same material. T h e experiment was repeated a third day with the consent o f most members o f the class. T h e discussion on the third day revolved around each set o f three sketches with very rewarding results for all the students.

It is important to foster the creative expression of adolescents because qualitative expression is concerned with and leads to the development of healthy outlooks upon life and living. This important objective discloses the aim o f all education, namely, the development o f h a r m o n i o u s personalities. A further examination o f this crucial aim also indicates that art education is not only a matter o f the adequate development o f artistic skills but o f educating the whole person. In a recent b o o k on Russian education, Alexander K o r o l points out that the education o f Russian engineers consists o f directed, dictated, and persistent training in technical facility along specialized lines. He concludes that viewed off the j o b , the super " e n g i n e e r " is still nothing more than a " m u j i k , " a peasant. T h e reason for such a condition is that he is trained rather than educated. Values, worthy goals, character, and even higher aspirations are important requisites o f creativity. T h e art o f our time cannot rise above the quality o f man's insight. T h e quality o f his insight is largely and inevitably determined by the degree o f moral stamina and integrity.

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If the all-embracing purpose of art education is to foster creative expression, it appears that paralleling such development there should also occur the development of a wholesome view of life. Implicit in a sound definition of "outlooks" is the view of total man, not just parts of him. It seems essential, then, that as young people in the secondary school engage in art activities, they do so with a clear idea of the functions, relationships, and values of the art product to mankind, and of the responsibilities of themselves as creators to society at large. To recapitulate: these seem to be the major reasons why art education in the secondary schools should foster creative expression as opposed to mechanical perfectionism: creative power is the need of the times, the development of perceptive capacity is essential in clear thinking, the enlargement of concepts and the development of insight are basic to the solution of human problems, and finally, the improvement of the outlooks is crucial because it leads to the establishment of the responsibility of art and of the artist to society. How Can the Task be

Accomplished?

Turning now to the means for accomplishing what has been detailed, a mere enumeration of do's and don'ts would seem ineffectual. The ways of achieving the desirable ends of art education must be seen in the context of art expression as it operates in the classroom, in order to come closer to an understanding of its true function. The means of art education are not mystical in character; strangely enough, they are rather simple and universal. But their effectiveness depends on the organic articulation and relationship which they individually bear to the creative process. When means and ends are considered simultaneously by the teacher, creative teaching is bound to take place. As a consequence, creative action will follow. Conversely, a lack of understanding of this organic relationship, or the avoidance of professional means inevitably results in a specious kind of production, even if it parades under the banner of creative expression. The teacher is the major influence and the key to the teachinglearning situation. Therefore, I would like to introduce here, briefly, the professional obligations of teachers of art. Admittedly, the teacher has the power and the opportunity of guiding pupils toward the fulfillment of their creative stature, or to thwart

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their capacities and stultify their imagination. Oftener than we suspect, failure to realize our true role and obligations produces technicians and mechanics rather than creative thinkers and doers. A prevalent situation which beclouds a teacher's vision is the so-called " h a n d s - o f f " policy. When misinterpreted this position is the grossest denial of the best intentions of the philosophy of growth and development. The ideal teacher is a constant guide, an ever-present stimulating agent, an inexhaustible source of confidence, and a fountain of understanding. But how does one inspire confidence, or stimulate, or guide ? Or, how does one identify himself with the yearnings and needs of his pupils? For some tentative answers let us examine our professional responsibilities. The first obligation of a teacher is with regard to a tenable contemporary point of view in art education The second obligation of a teacher of art is with respect to a knowledge of the psychological implications of method, of growth, and of human behavior The third obligation of an art teacher is with regard to a constant evaluation of his pupils. The fourth obligation of an art teacher is with regard to curriculum development The fifth obligation of an art teacher is with regard to the physical implementation of the art program The last of the obligations to which I wish to call attention is with regard to personaI experimentation, research, and creative work.

Let me conclude with the assurance of a full appreciation of the obstacles in the way: the lack of understanding of the creative process, the pressures, and the occasional lack of sympathy from various sources. Nevertheless, if art education is to make a significant contribution to creative education and to the dream of democratic society, at a time when originality of thinking is the great need as well as the supreme hope, we must accept the challenge. Art teachers must move with optimism to realize the true ends of art education: creative individuals, capable of solving aesthetic, personal, and social problems, and conscious of the inescapable relationship—man—art—society.

Geography in the High School Z O E A. T H R A L L S *

" L a n g u a g e Law Passed as Ceylon Seethes." " G h a n a Women Train as Housewives." " R i v e r : Rift Jars Asians."

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oday's headlines give a good reason for studying geography. In order to understand the conditions behind each one of these articles, we must know the culture, the problems, and the aspirations of these nations. Our lack of such knowledge and understanding has given rise to resentment toward the United States which the majority of Americans cannot understand. As to the reasons for our inability to grasp intelligently the culture, problems, and aspirations of other peoples, basically the reason is that we are ignorant of the geography of the country, the geography of the world and even the geography of our own country. The lack of such knowledge was illustrated recently when the marines landed in Lebanon. An intelligent man, a college graduate, and fairly successful in business indignantly remarked to a group, " W h a t does the President mean by sending a few marines into * Professor of Geography, University of Pittsburg.

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Lebanon. China has a million or more troops on the borders of Egypt and all that Egypt needs to do is to call upon them and our men would be wiped out." But China is 5,000 miles or more from Lebanon, and Lebanon is not a part of Egypt. Unfortunately such ignorance is common. This ignorance leads to misunderstanding and makes the foreign policy of our government difficult to frame and difficult to implement. The citizens of the United States should have the knowledge to support or to criticize intelligently the foreign policy of its officials. As Spykman says, "Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent." 1 Unfortunately there is a notion among the American people that the United States can make or unmake events at will. There is a great need to understand how limited our powers of decision are and how necessary is a greater knowledge of other lands and peoples in order to act intelligently in times of crisis. International problems must be seen in terms of the culture and physical conditions of the nations involved. The United States has been so richly blest geographically that it is difficult for us to understand the physical limitations of other nations. Another reason for teaching geography in the high school is that the study of geography gives the student an understanding of the significance of location on the earth's surface. This factor of location is important in business affairs as well as international affairs. The significance of geographic location may be illustrated in the development of the iron ore deposits of Venezuela. The steel companies developing those vast deposits had to know the exact location and extent of the deposits. They also had to know where the deposits were in relation to the Orinoco River, to the Atlantic Ocean, and to United States ports. The profitable development of these deposits depends on the cost of mining and transportation. Such costs in turn depend upon the terrain, the climatic conditions, the vegetation, the native labor supply, and the cultural and political conditions of the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela. Due to modern means of transportation and communication man is less dependent and consequently less limited by his local environment, but he has become not only more dependent upon conditions in all parts of the world but he is also more subject to world limitations. As a result of having to adjust to a global environment of 1 Nickolas J. Spykman, America's Strategy in World Politics, pp. 41 -42: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1942.

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which he knows little, the average individual has developed a feeling of insecurity and frustration. World patterns are so basic as frames of reference that every high school student should be given the opportunity to acquire them. In the process of developing the basic world patterns others are used until they also become a part of the mental equipment of the student. The world patterns which should be mastered are: first, the basic naturemade patterns; the continents and the oceans, the world pattern of land forms, and the world climatic pattern; second, the world pattern of industry and trade; and finally, the world political pattern. The nature-made world patterns are basic because they reveal how the world functions as a physical unit. In developing and giving meaning to these nature-made world patterns, the distribution of people over the earth is studied and certain relationships between population density and the physical environment should be noted. For instance in locating, describing, explaining, and interpreting such topographical features as plains, mountains, and plateaus, certain relationships may be noted between these features and man's distribution and activities. The world climatic pattern should be given special attention. As the student studies the climatic regions of the world, he becomes aware of their orderly arrangement and gains an initial understanding of their location and characteristics and how man has adjusted to the various world climates. In developing these world patterns, the teacher must be careful to maintain proper balance between the physical elements and the cultural features. The teacher should make constant use of maps of the distribution of land and water forms, the ocean currents, distribution of rainfall and of world wind belts, and other world patterns. A dynamic, rigorous course in physical geography should help to clear away man's ignorance of his world. Today, industry, whether farming, dairying, mining, manufacturing or any other, is global. The average person is unaware of the complex and often hidden ties that bind together all world industry, trades and labor. Economic geography has functional value today because it provides a geographic background against which business problems and also national and international problems may be viewed and understood; it gives a broader outlook on industry and trade; and it affords a foundation for building an appreciation of our own and other peoples' economic problems. Thus economic geography should

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be an interpretative study of the geographical distribution of man's industries. The student should realize that he is a component part of the world economy. Citizens in our democratic society are constantly having to make judgments and decisions on community, state, national, and international problems. The geographical factors that enter into the political geography of a nation are: a nation's size, shape, location, topography, climate, mineral resources, and other physical conditions; the nation's economic resources and activities; and the type and distribution of the people, their religion or religions, history and government. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. There are several possible ways to organize a political geography course in the high school. A course could be based on strategic areas or centers of international tensions. Another organization could be based on a study of certain nations of special interest to Americans such as the U.S.S.R., China, India, and the Latin American nations. A third type of organization could be about problems of international scope and of current interest. A well taught course in political geography should give the student a broad comprehensive knowledge of the strength, the aims, and the policies of nations. This knowledge is basic to understanding the problems of security in a dynamic world. The development of these world patterns must be of sufficient depth as to give the high school student an understanding of the modern world and provide him with a frame of reference. Furthermore these patterns must be taught as dynamic patterns. Maps are essential in developing and giving meaning to these world patterns. Graphs and statistics should be used to give concreteness to general statements, to prove or refute a careless statement or impression. They serve to keep up-to-date changing conditions in trade, production, land use, and resources. The teacher must keep in mind that statistics are not to be used as ends in themselves but as tools to be used in gaining geographic knowledge and understanding. Current events can be used as a means of arousing interest and giving a sense of reality to the areas and topics under discussion. Above all the teacher must have a broad knowledge of geography. He must have enthusiasm and the ability to convey his enthusiasm to others. He needs a creative imagination in order to make landscapes and people live for his students and to open up new horizons for them.

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In such a time as the present, writes Sir Cyril Norwood, "it is madness not to put before the children as true a picture as we can, a picture, that is to say, based upon scientific fact, of the place of their country in the world, and therefore a really convincing picture of its duty and opportunity."

IX Elementary Education

What the Elementary School Teacher to P E R C I V A L M. S Y M O N D S *

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HE QUESTION MAY well be asked, why should a teacher be concerned with psychology? Would it not be sufficient in the preparation of teachers to instruct in methods of teaching, classroom management, the selection and organization of curriculum materials and disciplinary control without going afield to study psychology? Nearly sixty years ago Dean James E. Russell, appointed to the task of setting up a professional school for teachers, called a number of promising young men to join the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University to represent such disciplines as history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. Dean Russell argued that a teacher should be acquainted with and have mastery over the principles and skills of his profession, but he should also be grounded in the fundamental disciplines underlying education. A m o n g these young men was a promising young psychologist, Edward L. Thorndike, a student of William James and recently appointed to Western Reserve

* Teachers College, Columbia

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University. Thorndike accepted the invitation to come to Teachers College and occupied the first chair of what has come to be known as educational psychology. He gave prestige to this application of the principles of psychology by his noteworthy studies of learning, intelligence, testing and motivation. Education is an art and a technology. And a teacher is a practitioner, an artist, an engineer by whose skill children are helped to develop and to learn to take their place as responsible citizens in our world. But every engineer or artist must base his practice in accord with the fundamental sciences or principles underlying his discipline. The engineer must know his mathematics, physics and chemistry. The musician must be acquainted with the principles of harmony and counterpoint, the artist with the principles of aesthetics, the writer with grammar and rhetoric. Likewise the teacher should know the laws and principles of psychology so that when she makes a decision as to what course of action to pursue in her work it will be based on correct psychological principles. We make a distinction between an engineer and a mechanic. A mechanic may be only a tinkerer who tunes up your engine by rule of t h u m b methods without understanding the basic principles of the gasoline engine. An engineer, on the other hand, having studied the sciences basic to his art, is able to meet new and unfamiliar situations and to adapt his materials to them. T o o many teachers are also mechanics and tinkerers. They teach as they were taught in ways that come naturally by tradition, but which may be quite uneconomical in result. Too many teachers are unaware of the psychological outcomes of their methods and consequently they are unable to adapt to the very special demands of the individual child. But the master teacher meets new situations intelligently and creatively. It is my belief that psychology is essential as part of the preparation and equipment of the master teacher. One of the problems of every teacher is motivation. When a child fails to learn, the question is naturally raised—does he have the necessary I.Q. to master the material? M a n y times it has been found that the intellectual level is sufficiently high, but still the child does not learn—it is a problem of motivation. If a child does not make normal expected progress in school one can be almost certain that one of the factors responsible is lack of sufficient motivation. But how do you

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motivate an uninterested, apathetic, resistant child? For an answer to this stubborn question the teacher turns to psychology. It should be stated that psychology does not find the answer to the problem of motivation in the material to be learned. If a teacher has difficulty in making a class interested in the study of participles in English grammar, or in finding the lowest common denominator in arithmetic, one should not expect that the psychologist will perform some miracle and find a way of sugar-coating these unpalatable morsels of learning. It is true that we have learned in recent years a great deal about making games out of the learning of arithmetical procedures and about tying the learning of grammatical principles to their use in writing and speaking. But these are palliatives only, and do not go to the heart of the problem of motivation. To understand motivation one must go beyond subject matter to the child himself. Neal Miller has said, "Without drives, either primary or acquired, the organism does not behave and hence does not learn." 1 That is, we must ask "what are the child's basic drives?" "What is he interested i n ? " And learning in school must be built on the needs and interests which the child brings to the situation. That is not always so difficult as it might first appear to be, for every child has certain basic cravings that can be depended on to operate in any learning situation. Every child has the need to satisfy inner physiological cravings of hunger, thirst, sex and the like. Every child has the need to escape from and to avoid dangers coming from without. Every child has the need to be accepted—to be loved and given affection and to feel that he is wanted and belongs. Every child craves to be noticed, admired, approved and praised. Every child wants to think well of himself and to feel self-esteem and self-respect. Every child would like to be successful and achieve mastery. Every child would like to become less dependent on others (unless his anxieties make him afraid of venturing out on his own). These are seven wants that are present in every child and that can be counted on to serve as the basis for effective motivation in the school. In fact, they are the only sources of motivation. While the satisfaction of inner needs and the avoidance of outer dangers are always present and can always be counted on as effective 1 Neal E. Miller and John Dollard, Social Learning Haven: Yale University Press, 1941.

and Imitation,

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motivations, the teacher can look to two of these cravings as her most effective motivations—the desire for love, affection, belonging and the desire for approval, praise, prestige, status. I recently heard of a teacher who was asked to serve as a substitute for a teacher who was absent in a class of very unruly, defiant, difficult girls. N o teacher who had been placed in charge of this group of girls had been successful with them and the teacher in whose place my friend had been asked to substitute was no more successful than the others— she had hung on by asserting her authority f r o m hour to hour. My friend approached her assignment with some trepidation and misgiving, determined to use a different approach. She started in by asking each girl her name and by trying to learn each girl's name. She m a d e a resolve that she would find things to be pleased with that she could praise in as many girls as possible. This was a new experience for this class and as the morning wore on she discovered that the girls were responding to her overtures. While apparently determined to be resistant at first, they could not resist responding to this positive approach. Even though one girl might not be praised she apparently accepted praise given to another vicariously, and there was a noticeable attempt to do the things and act in ways that would bring praise to her. At the end of the morning the girls pleaded with the teacher to come back. One girl confessed afterwards that she had intended to be defiant to this new teacher, but as the morning wore on she forgot her resolve. I am not sure that much learning took place on that morning. But that is not important. A foundation of motivation was laid which could be used for effective learning on subsequent occasions. The basis for effective classroom motivation resides in the interpersonal relationships and not in the materials of instruction. At the beginning all motivation springs from the attitudes that pupils hold toward the teacher (and also toward their classmates). Probably you have all heard of the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation—that extrinsic motivation is bad and that education should depend on intrinsic motivation. The kind of motivation that I have just described to you would be classed as extrisic—pupils were not resounding to interest in subject matter, but to the praise that they might receive from the teacher. I believe we would all agree that intrinsic motivation is a goal that we all fervently hope for with every

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child. We hope that he will become interested in something that is taught him in school and that his interest will carry on and over outside of school. The goal of every teacher should be to make herself dispensable so that the pupil will take over and direct his own learning and proceed on his own steam from motivation that comes f r o m within. We would like to have the satisfaction of accomplishment of solving a problem ourselves, of doing a good j o b by one's own standards to take the place of praise by the teacher. But it is my firm conviction that you cannot begin with this intrinsic self-motivation. At the beginning of learning and of school the teacher is necessary and she should not be ashamed of giving fulsom praise. Neither should she be downhearted if a pupil comes to her dull, apathetic, resistant, defiant. It is the teacher's task to appeal to the natural cravings that are in every child to make him want to learn. The teacher who has found out how to motivate her pupils has solved the m a j o r problem of teaching. And what about learning itself. There have been many schools of psychology and many theories of learning. I feel, however, that within the past few years psychologists have come together in a remarkable way and there is general agreement on a few basic principles of learning. The key word seems to be "reinforcement", a technical term which can best be translated as meaning reward. To quote Neal Miller again, "Without reward people fail to learn," and again "Drive impels the person to make responses to cues in the stimulus situation. Whether these responses will be repeated depends on whether or not they are rewarded." Now reward is used very broadly in this connection. Commonly we think of reward as a prize, a badge, some money or other gift. But in school learning the reward may simply be a token that a child has made a correct or acceptable response—that he has pleased the teacher. Indeed, in much of school learning the most potent reinforcement of learning is the information as to the correctness or acceptability of a response. There is a necessary connection between motivation and reinforcement. T h a t which is wanted, craved, searched or striven for in motivation becomes the reward or reinforcement when it is once obtained or received. If a child wants to be noticed, praised or approved for what he does he will repeat that for which he or others are praised or approved. The child is constantly alert to the responses he may

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make which will bring him the satisfactions which he desires. I wonder if teachers really believe that without reward people fail to learn. I have sat in classrooms where the teacher has not once shown any sign of pleasure or satisfaction or approval. She may scold, find fault, criticize, but these are negative incentives tending to stop children from what they are doing. But the praise or approval that may serve as a guide to activity is absent. It is sometimes a wonder that the children in some classrooms learn at all. An eminent psychologist, B. F. Skinner, believes that children need to receive much more frequent reinforcement of the things that we expect them to learn for the most effective learning. And this reinforcement should come soon—in a matter of seconds or minutes after the response has been made. Take the learning of arithmetic. A teacher will explain a new process in the addition of fractions, let us say, put a few examples on the blackboard and then at the end of the hour announce, " F o r tomorrow do examples 1 to 10 on page 161". The children take their books home, do the ten exercises in the evening and pass in the papers the next day. The teacher collects the papers, takes them home and "corrects" them. On the third day the papers are returned to the class. By this time the class has perhaps moved on to a new topic. And what does Johnnie do with his paper? If he has all of his examples right he feels pleased, if he has many wrong he feels for a moment uncomfortable. It is the unusual teacher who goes back again to the addition of fractions to provide fresh exercises for those who made errors so that they might learn the correct procedure. And it is the very unusual pupil who makes the effort to find out the nature of his errors and to have the experience of performing the operation correctly. Looked at in this way it is a wonder that some children learn arithmetic at all, and actually many of them learn it only imperfectly. Skinner believes that pupils should be told immediately and often the correctness and acceptability of their exercises. Naturally it is important that the correct response be made the first time, for only the correct response can be rewarded or reinforced. Desirable learning never takes place f r o m wrong or incorrect responses. But how does one ensure that the first response is the right one? There is a current theory of teaching that there is merit in problem solving and in discovery. I am not denying that pupils should be taught

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to think, to solve problems and to be independent. But for much learning this is wasteful. When learning a new topic and process children need to be told, guided, directed so that they will make the correct response that can be reinforced. As for problem solving and learning to think, that too needs to be directed and guided so that it can be reinforced. 1 wonder why some teachers have resistance to informing children, explaining, guiding, directing, demonstrating. Is there some special merit to make learning difficult? If progress in learning is what is desired then psychologists have discovered that learning can be stepped up in a remarkable way by immediate and frequent reinforcement. And what about the place of punishment in education? Can punishment serve as a motivating force? Is punishment to be paired with reward as a device for facilitating learning? In this paper I cannot go into all the vicissitudes of punishment and I hesitate to express the present point of view of psychologists because they can so easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted. There is a place for punishment, but not in education. There is a place for punishment as a method of control but not as a guide to learning. Psychologists have discovered that the outcome of punishment is the cessation of activity, the inhibition of behavior. But is that what education is trying to accomplish—the cessation of activity? No, the aim of education is the formation of desirable behavior in the form of habits, skills, information, attitudes, ideals, appreciations. Education is a positive thing. Punishment may serve for the control of behavior but does not serve as a guide to learning. Punishment may be necessary on occasions to control behavior so that learning and education can take place. But if a teacher has to resort to punishment frequently perhaps he should ask himself whether he has neglected to secure positive motivation. The best teachers I have known use very little or no punishment—they are too busy teaching and the class is too busy learning. If a teacher, at his wits end, finds that he is inclined to issue a threat of punishment, perhaps he should stop and ask himself —what is wrong here in my relationships with this class? I could go on and elaborate on these and other topics for a long time. But I will mention only one other that is of concern to every elementary school teacher—the problem of individual differences.

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Every teacher knows that children differ one from another. How shall we think about these differences ? Are they inevitable or can they be corrected? What should one do about individual differences? How should children be grouped? How should they be promoted? What can be done about differences in the classroom ? Psychology cannot answer these questions because the answers depend in part on social considerations which are not essentially psychological in nature. But psychology can provide facts about individual differences which must be taken into consideration in making educational decisions. Take the children who are six years of age who have entered the first grade of the schools of this country this fall. Of 100 six-year-old children roughly about one-third of them have the mental development of six year olds. One third have the mental development of children who are five years old or less—while one third of them have the mental development of children who are over six years of age. I am not saying whether these differences are native, inherited differences or whether they are the result of early experiences. The important fact is that the differences exist and that they are real differences. The great majority of these children, as required by law, will enter the first grade when they are six. It has been found that a mental age of six is necessary to begin to learn to read. But a third of these children have a mental age of less than six. They are doomed to have difficulty in learning to read in the first grade and many if not most of them will become retarded or nonreaders. Educators worry a lot about retarded readers and there is much soul searching regarding methods of teaching reading. But because we treat all children of the same age alike one out of three will inevitably have difficulty in learning to read at age six. One of these 100 six-year-old children has the mental development of a three year old child. He can scrawl with a pencil, string beads on a string. Should he enter the first grade? The chances are that he will mature just about half as fast as the average six-year-old and he will be twelve years old before he is ready for the mental activities of the first grade. One of these six-year-old children has a mental age of nine. He probably learned to read and knew his number combinations three or four years ago. He would be utterly bored by the activities of the first grade. The child with a mental age of three will probably be

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placed in a so-called "special class" in o u r large cities. But what a b o u t the b o y with a mental age of n i n e ? Will he have special p l a c e m e n t ! Until very recently o u r bright a n d gifted children have been treated as any n o r m a l c h i l d — t o d o otherwise should be u n d e m o c r a t i c . But Soviet Russia has with d r a m a t i c s u d d e n n e s s m a d e us realize that we are refusing to face u p t o the facts of individual differences. I have been talking as t h o u g h the d e v e l o p m e n t of a n individual child proceeds evenly, but as is well k n o w n the profile of a given child is uneven and h e is m o r e a d v a n c e d in s o m e areas t h a n in others. S o m e children are m o r e proficient with w o r d s t h a n with n u m b e r s ; some are more proficient with their bodies a n d their h a n d s t h a n with their minds. This greatly complicates the facts a b o u t individual differences and t h e decisions that m u s t be m a d e . Let us look at the facts a little m o r e closely a n d c o n s i d e r the class in the a d d i t i o n of f r a c t i o n s already used as an illustration. J o h n h a d all of his exercises c o r r e c t — h e is ready to go on. But M a r y only h a d two of her exercises correct a n d is u n a b l e to tell h o w she got these two. Obviously she is not ready t o go on. W h e n she comes t o exercises or problems using the a d d i t i o n of f r a c t i o n s she will be helpless a n d confused. W h a t is the teacher to d o in this s i t u a t i o n ? If she gives her attention to M a r y ' s difficulties J o h n will be penalized by the delay; a n d if she gives her a t t e n t i o n to J o h n M a r y will be left hopelessly behind. Multiply these illustrations by 20 o r 30 a n d o n e sees the m a g n i t u d e of the p r o b l e m s faced by m a n y teachers. T o the psychologist g r o u p i n g o r sectioning is an a b s o l u t e necessity i f l e a r n i n g is to proceed f o r the benefit of all children. T h e p o p u l a r trend t o d a y is to take care of individual differences within the classr o o m by b r e a k i n g u p a class into small g r o u p s a c c o r d i n g t o progress. This places considerable strain a n d responsibility o n t h e teacher. T h e whole extent of individual differences is n o t p o p u l a r l y realized a n d they a r e not fully a p p r e c i a t e d even within the teaching profession. Consequently g r o u p i n g heterogeneously a n d then a t t e m p t i n g to t a k e care of individual differences within the c l a s s r o o m does n o t begin t o solve t h e p r o b l e m . Discussions of a d j u s t i n g t o individual differences are always c o m plicated by social considerations. A n y a t t e m p t at m a k i n g g r o u p s h o m o g e n e o u s in progress of the subject m a t t e r being t a u g h t will ultimately raise the q u e s t i o n of d e m o c r a c y a n d e q u a l o p p o r t u n i t y .

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This is particularly true today when the question o f desegregation is such a pressing social issue. On the other side Soviet advances in technology have emphasized the need for the recognition and fostering o f talent. S o there are strong forces operating in society today both for and against homogeneity in grouping and bitter controversies rage over this issue. It is not the province o f this paper to discuss thoroughly all aspects o f this problem. But from the point o f view o f creating the climate most favorable to learning, homogeneous grouping with regard to ability is desirable. There are many other topics on which the elementary teacher l o o k s to psychology for help and guidance. There is the problem o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n — h o w the teacher can most efficiently explain and describe, in short, t e a c h — t o which psychologists are currently giving attention. There is the problem o f the operation o f groups, particularly small groups. There is the question o f interpersonal relations between teachers and pupils. Psychology has much to contribute to the problem o f evaluation. Psychology has made careful studies through observation o f how children grow and the characteristics o f the adolescent period. Then there is the whole host o f questions relating to the understanding o f the individual child, particularly the child with emotional problems. This would take us into the work o f the school psychologist, diagnosis and therapy, and individual counseling and guidance. W e know a great deal today that helps us to understand the deviant child and to take steps o f a remedial nature that helps to correct his deviations. I believe I will have accomplished my mission today if I have brought home to you the fact that psychology has something to contribute to education. Psychology now thinks o f itself as a science rather than as a branch of philosophy. T h e facts and truths o f psychology today c o m e not from arm chair speculation and deductive reasoning from assumed first principles, but from patient and careful observation and experimentation on both animals and men. In discovering how children (and animals) learn, psychologists have also discovered ways o f arranging and controlling the learning process that greatly facilitates and enhances it. Teachers should be eager to inform themselves o f these new discoveries and to adapt their practices to take advantage o f them even if it means abolishing traditional methods o f teaching and the substitution o f new methods. I hope that this

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p a p e r m a y s t i m u l a t e s o m e of y o u t o look into, r e a d a n d s t u d y s o m e of t h e b o o k s in e d u c a t i o n a l p s y c h o l o g y , child a n d a d o l e s c e n t psyc h o l o g y , the p s y c h o l o g y of personality a n d a d j u s t m e n t a n d m a n u a l s o n the t r e a t m e n t of the child with b e h a v i o r p r o b l e m s . W i t h t h e c o m p i l a t i o n in these texts of the recent discoveries in p s y c h o l o g y a n d their a p p l i c a t i o n to e d u c a t i o n , I believe t h a t the scientific f o u n d a t i o n f o r e d u c a t i o n is available to everyone, r e a d y t o serve the n e e d s of master teachers. SOME OF THE M O R E RECENT A N D O U T S T A N D I N G TEXTS IN PSYCHOLOGY T H A T PERTAIN TO E D U C A T I O N Books on Educational Psychology L. Ε. Cole and W. E. Bruce, Educational Psychology, Yonkers-onH u d s o n : World Book Company, 1950. L. J. Cronbach, Educational Psychology, New Y o r k : Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1954. A. I. Gates, Α. Τ. Jersild, Τ. R. McConnell, and R. C. Challman, Educational Psychology, New York: The Macmillan C o m p a n y , 1950. S. L. Pressey, and F. P. Robinson, Psycholog ν and the New Education, New Y o r k : Harper & Brothers, New Edition, 1958. J. M. Stephens, Educational Psychology, New Y o r k : Henry Holt and Company, 1956. P. M. Symonds, What Education Has to Learn From Psychology, New Y o r k : Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1958. Books on Child Development Millie Almy, Child Development, New Y o r k : Henry Holt and Co., 1955. Ε. B. Hurlock, Child Development, New Y o r k : McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956, 3rd Ed. A. T. Jersild, Child Psychology, Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1954, 4th Ed. J. M. Lee, and D. M. Lee, The Child and His Development, New Y o r k : Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1958. W. E. Martin, and C. B. Stendler, Child Development, New Y o r k : Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1953. Books on Adolescence Luella Cole, Psychology Co., 1954, 4th Ed.

of Adolescence,

New Y o r k : Rinehart &

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K. C. Garrison, Psychology of Adolescence, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1956, 5th Ed. A. T. Jersind, The Psychology of Adolescence, New York: The Macm ill an Company, 1957. R. G. Kuhlen, The Psychology of Adolescent Development, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942. R. M. Strang, The Adolescent Views Himself, New York: McGrawHill Book Company, 1957. Books on Personality and Adjustment L. F. Shaffer, and E. J. Shoben, Jr., Psychology of Adjustment, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1956, 2nd Ed. P. M. Symonds, Dynamic Psychology, New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1949. Books on Exceptional Children Willard Abraham, Common Sense About Gifted Children, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958. W. M. Cruikshank, and G. O. Johnson, Education of Exceptional Children and Youth, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958. Ν. E. Cutts, and Nicholas Moseley, Teaching the Bright and Gifted, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1957. R. F. DeHaan, and R. J. Havighurst, Educating Gifted Children, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957. Florence Goodenough, Exceptional Children, New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1956. K. F. Heiser, Our Backward Children, New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1955. S. A. Kirk, and G. O. Johnson, Educating the Retarded Child, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1951. H. S. Lippmann, Treatment of the Child in Emotional Conflict, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956.

Controversial

Issues in the

ALBERT

T

HERE

is

NO

Teaching

J. H A R R I S *

lack of controversial issues in the teaching of reading.

Despite all of the research that has been done during the past 40 years and despite the fact that the readers that are used in most of the schools follow a relatively similar methodology, current practices are being challenged in many different ways. An incomplete listing of issues that are currently in the controversial state would have to include the following major ones: When children do not seem to be ready for the beginning of reading instruction, is it better to postpone such instruction or to begin it at a slow rate ? What is the best way to get children started in reading? Here we have had three major kinds of challenges within the past few years. The first was M c D a d e ' s Non-Oral Method, which was enthusiastically advocated and was used fairly widely in Chicago during the 1940's. * Director of the Educational New York City.

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of Education,

Queens

College,

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The second is McCracken's enthusiastic advocacy of the use of film strips for the beginning of reading, as done in his school in New Castle, Pennsylvania. The third is the proposal, from several sources, that beginning reading should start with the learning of the letters, letter sounds, and putting together of letter sounds to make syllables and words before any connected reading is done. There is lively argument as to the relative merits of teaching reading in groups or of adopting a wholly individualized method. There is wide difference in practice as to whether systematic teaching of reading skills should be discontinued at the end of the primary grades or should be continued through the elementary school and into secondary school. There is a good deal of disagreement as to how the reading aspect of study in various curriculum fields is to be handled. The value of mechanical devices for reading improvement is still a widely debated issue. The question of what causes reading disability is at present wide open, with a number of interesting new proposals. The question of how to determine the potential reading capacity of the child is one on which several alternatives have been proposed and there is no uniform practice. The whole question of remedial reading involves controversy over the best ways to meet the needs of those children who fall behind in achieving reading competence. The issues mentioned above are only some of the questions about which one can find conflicting opinions in recent writings and reports. Each one of these issues is an important topic, but I shall concentrate on only two of them. The first of these is the controversy over how to start children in learning to read. The second is the question of what causes reading disability. These two are closely inter-related. Methods

of Teaching Beginning

Reading

The most lively controversy in the field of teaching beginners to read is between synthetic methods of starting with intensive teaching of letter names, sounds, and blending, and the methods most widely in use in this country at the present time, all of which are analytic in that they start with words or larger wholes and introduce methods of

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word analysis gradually and over a considerable period of time. The alphabet-sound-blending method, advocated by Rudolf Flesch in 1955, is currently brought before the public again in a book entitled Reading: Chaos and Cure.1 In this book the arguments in favor of such a procedure are very effectively stated, and the latter part of the book contains 45 pages of drill material and about 40 pages of instructions as to how to teach this material. The material and methodology here is recommended as sufficient for a good start in reading either for a beginner or for the child who has failed to become a good reader. In this new book, the authors make it clear that they will not accept any compromise or intermediate position. If a method does not start by direct teaching of the alphabet, sounds, and blending, it is considered necessarily inferior and will produce inferior results. Teachers who use any other kind of methodology are accused of withholding the key to reading. It follows that according to this argument all of the shortcomings which now can be found in the outcomes of present reading programs are due to failure to start children in the right way. If in a particular research study the results are not conclusively in favor of the more phonic of two procedures, this is attributed to the failure of the more phonic of the two procedures to teach phonics early enough and systematically enough. Much as one may be irritated by the style, the sarcastic tone, and the air of omniscience which are common to Flesch's book and this new one, one cannot dismiss the argument on that basis. Nor can the issues be decided by resorting to further analysis of research studies conducted 20 or more years ago. There have been too many changes in school policies, promotion procedures, general classroom organization techniques, and in the specific materials used in reading instruction to make it seem likely that we can come to any kind of conclusion on the basis of the older studies. Recently there have been two reports of large-scale efforts to find a definitive answer to this question. One of these reports is from Champaign, Illinois, where a large number of experimental and control first grade classes were compared starting in 1952. The experimental classes used a published phonics 1 Sybil Terman and Charles C. Walcutt, Reading: Chaos and Cure, New York: McGraw Hill, 1958.

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system in which systematic instruction in sounding and blending is given for several weeks before the conventional type of basal reader material is begun. The results as summarized in a report published in 1955 1 seemed to favor the experimental method not only in word recognition skills, but also on standardized silent reading tests. The other study, conducted by Donald D. Durrell and his associates, occupies the entire issue of the Journal of Education f o r February, 1958. Four school systems in the area around the city of Boston were involved, with a total of more than 2000 first grade children. Pre-tests including intelligence tests and a variety of readiness tests were given in September, and additional testing programs were carried out in November, February, and June of that year. Unfortunately only one standardized test was included in the June data, The Detroit Word Recognition Test. On this, three of the systems scored well above the norms of the test and one approximately at the norm. In discussing these results, it is stated that in the three systems where the results were good, reading consultants spent a great deal of time with the first grade teachers, meeting with them in groups, and providing for the duplication of a large a m o u n t of new teaching material and for interchange of ideas and materials among the teachers. In the fourth system, in which the results were not so good, the teachers were provided with a general plan and were visited from time to time by the research team, but did not have the intensive supervisory help that was available in the other three communities. In another part of the study, 12 classes taught by the experimental procedure were matched with 12 other classes in the same community which were taught by the conventional method of a popular set of basal readers. It is not stated whether the teachers using the basal reader method were given any special supervisory help, and it is fairly obvious, although not clearly stated in the report, that the 12 experimental classes did receive the benefit of such help. The results in this controlled g r o u p study were favorable to the experimental or phonics group on most of the instruments used in the evaluation. These included an unstandardized paragraph comprehension test. In a final aspect of the study, the Metropolitan Reading Test was given early in 1 J. Thomas Hasting and Theodore D. Harris, The Champaign Story, Urbana, Illinois, 1955.

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the second grade to the experimental group in one of the communities, and the median grade score of 2.5 was .2 years above the previous year's median, when the usual basal reader methodology had been used. There is no doubt that in this study by Durrell and his associates, the groups which used the experimental method tended as a whole to come out with good results. These communities tended to be well above the average of the total population in ability and knowledge at the beginning of the year. For example, the median I.Q.s of the children ranged from 108 to 110. One would expect that in such communities the level of achievement should be somewhat above that of the general population. When one attempts to determine which was more important in influencing the results, the experimental method or the supervisory help provided to the teachers, the latter seems to this reader to be the more significant factor. On the other hand, one cannot be sure from a reading of these brief summaries that the factors which really influenced the results have been described with sufficient detail so as to allow one to come to any conclusions as to what produced the results. Going back to the Champaign study, one may well wonder whether the combined influence of the novelty of the method, the knowledge that there was a research study being conducted, and the enthusiasm of supervisory personnel for the experimental method may have been in large measure responsible for the results obtained. For those who are reluctant to accept the results of these experimental projects at face value (and I am one of them) the plans for the immediate future would seem to be not more argument and discussion, but the planning and conducting of large-scale, sophisticated research, in which it will be possible to relate the results unequivocally to specific methodology. I do not believe that we have such research at the present time. Another way of looking at this issue is to consider alternatives which have been tried out and which have also been reported to produce outstandingly successful results. Strictly comparable to the results claimed for the intensive phonetic method are the results that Glenn McCracken has reported from New Castle. In the most recent of these reports that has come to my attention, Mr. McCracken asserted that "since 1949 more than 600 pupils have participated in this Q.Q.A.E.—Κ

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program and none has achieved lower than average progress." 1 The essential features of the method include the use of film-strips to accompany a particular basal reading series so that there would be at least one film-strip frame for every lesson in the basal reader. All initial teaching occurs at the projection screen, textbooks being used for extended reading practice and to test for learning. The focus is, therefore, on visual presentation and study with word recognition skills developed as in other basal reading systems. Other features are the teaching of the whole class as a unit rather than in groups, and complete disregard of the concept of reading readiness, since all children are started on reading together early in the school year. The New Castle procedure is obviously very different from that followed by Durrell or that advocated by the proponents of an exclusively phonic beginning. Since the results are quite comparable, accepting all claims at face value, one may well wonder whether it is the specifics of the method or the contagious enthusiasm and step by step assistance by a highly involved supervisor that is the essential factor. One of the claims which both the intensive phonics proponents and Mr. McCracken have in common is that there are no cases of reading disability in the groups taught by their procedures. This is a claim which people who have had intimate experience with reading problems at a clinical level cannot help but doubt. Nevertheless, doubt is one thing and disproof is another. If either or both of these procedures can actually prevent the development of any cases of reading disability, it would seem that radical revision of our general method of teaching reading is in order. The only way in which these claims can be proven or disproven to the satisfaction of all concerned is through the carrying out of large scale and very carefully planned research projects, since in all scientific advancement repeatability and verifiability by independent sources is a major criterion of proof. At this point it seems necessary to restate the essentials of the controversy over phonics. The issue is not a question of whether to teach phonics or whether not to teach phonics, since all of the parties agree that children need to be helped to become independent in their 1

Glenn McCracken, "The New Castle Reading Experiment (A Progress Report)," The Reading Teacher, Vol. 9, p. 241, April, 1956.

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ability to attack their words. The pro-phonics group believes that one must start with an intensive teaching of the alphabet, its sounds, and the process of blending, before starting any meaningful reading. The opposite point of view, which is the one generally prevailing today, believes that for most children a procedure which starts with words as wholes and which gradually introduces word analysis skills during the three years of the primary grades is to be preferred. This group also believes that phonic sounding and blending is only one of the techniques that should be taught to children, along with structural analysis and with training in the effective use of context clues. It may be helpful to take a look at the state of this controversy 36 years ago. The following is a quotation from Clarence T. Gray, written in 1922: The early teacher of reading proceeded upon the theory that words must be spelled or analyzed before reading could take place. The acceptance of the word and sentence methods, which were based in a large degree upon Cattell's results, led for a time to the other extreme. In such procedure the child was given no means of analysis, and, as a result, when he came to a new situation he had no methods for extracting himself from such difficulties. It was soon realized that some method of analysis was necessary for the child, and the problem has been solved, at least in part, by teaching him to spell in connection with his reading and by giving him the technique of phonics. These two processes, synthesis and analysis, stand opposed to each other, and the difficulty lies in so balancing them that the one does not overshadow the other. Both processes must be taught and both must be held clearly in the mind of the teacher. 1

It seems a pity that 36 years after the above statement was written, we still have not reached a final conclusion on the problems involved. The Causation of Reading

Disability

On the causation of reading disability we find a wide range of opinion. Among the enthusiasts for the intensive phonic method we find a general point of view that reading disability is simply the result of incorrect methods of instruction and that all that is required is to 1 Clarence T. Gray, Deficiencies in Reading Ability, p. 89, Boston: D. C. Heath, 1922.

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repair the damage by applying the appropriate phonic teaching procedures. This is modified in Donald Durrell's point of view by supplementing the analysis of educational needs with a thorough medical examination, since he admits that certain conditions of vision, hearing, and other health problems can be interfering factors. The possible significance of either neurological or psychological causation outside of the classroom learning situation is rejected consistently by those who hold to this point of view. Two extended and comprehensive reviews of the literature on the causation of reading disability have appeared in the past few years. The first, Helen Robinson's Why Pupils Fail in Reading,1 appeared in 1946. The recent book entitled Backwardness In Reading by Professor M. D. Vernon of the University of Reading in England may have escaped the notice of many of you. Dr. Vernon has done an amazingly comprehensive and scholarly analysis of over 400 contributions to the literature on reading disabilities. She, like Dr. Robinson, comes out with cautious and tentative conclusions. They both believe that this is a complex issue, that different children with reading disabilities develop these difficulties on a basis of a variety of handicaps in different combinations, and that there is much that we still do not know about the causation of reading disabilities. In addition to educational mishaps and the results of poor teaching, both Robinson and Vernon find evidence for many causes or influences which arise outside of the school situation. Some of these are constitutional characteristics of the child, including sensory defects such as certain types of eye difficulties, and neurological disability or deviation. Other cause or factors to which they give attention are those which grow out of the interaction of a child with his family, resulting in a variety of personality problems of a sort to interfere with the child's ability to learn in a school situation. Vernon points out, for example, that extreme difficulty in learning to read is found in many children in association with slow development of speech, difficulty in writing related to left-handedness, ambidextrality or unusually in-co-ordinated movement, and marked temperamental instability. "What exactly is the nature of the congenital tendency which gives rise to these effects is more doubtful. It may 1

Helen M. Robinson, Why Pupils Fail in Reading, Chicago: University of Chicago Press Common, 1946.

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indeed be a lack of maturation in the development of certain areas of the cerebral cortex, and particularly in the differentiation and specialization of function. Or it may be that there is some deficiency in the co-ordination of various parts of the cortex, and especially in the co-ordination of function of the opposite hemispheres which underlies hemispherical dominance." 1 The study of neurological damage in children and its effects on learning is a very new area of psychological investigation. We are only beginning to develop tests that have some prospect of differentiating the neurologically handicapped child from other children, and the psychological effects of the neurological difficulties and the methods of education that will help to counteract the handicaps are only now being intensively explored. As a result, only the most tentative of conclusions can be arrived at as yet, but there is hope that within a relatively short period of time we will know a great deal more about this important issue. Meanwhile evidence is accumulating rapidly that neurological handicaps or deviations are significant in the causation of at least some of our most severe cases of reading disability. At the Milwaukee Conference of the International Reading Association in May, 1958, a whole program was given to this question, and the four excellent papers can be found in the Conference Proceedings which have just been published. 2 Two of these papers presented significant new information on this question. Dr. J. Preston R o b b of the Montreal Neurological Institute reported new evidence of a close relationship between marked difficulty in learning in school and abnormal functioning of the occipital lobe of the brain. Dr. Donald E. P. Smith of the University of Michigan presented evidence of a chemical theory of the causation of reading disability based on new studies of what influences conduction of nerve impulses in the brain. According to Dr. Smith, faulty balance of two chemicals, Cholinesterase and acetylcholine, prevents effective transmittal of nerve impulses and interferes with the learning of reading. In a paper which Dr. Smith delivered at the meeting of the 1

M. D. Vernon, Backwardness in Reading: A Study of Its Nature and Origin, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press Common, 1957. 2 J. Allen Figurel, Ed., Reading for Effective Living, International Reading Association Conference Proceedings, Vol. 3, 1958, New York: Scholastic Magazines, 1958.

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American Psychological Association in Washington Dr. Smith presented preliminary evidence that children given medication in accordance with this theory of chemical causation improved when given remedial reading much faster than children of similar characteristics who do not receive the medication. This certainly is an exciting new avenue requiring much further study. There is also an extensive literature on the relationship between emotional and family problems and the causation of reading difficulties. Certainly the many reports from child guidance clinics indicating a dynamic relationship, and the case reports of children who have improved in reading after psychotherapy without special help in reading, cannot be lightly dismissed. Up to this point I have attempted to be reasonably objective in my statement of the different sides of these two important and interrelated issues. It is obvious that the two are inter-related. If there is one method of teaching reading which works without fail on all children except the severely mentally defective, then we need not worry about why some children of normal intelligence catch on a little more slowly than others since all we have to do is to go ahead and teach them in the same way and they will become readers. If, on the other hand, there are some children who bring to the classroom constitutional handicaps or emotional difficulties which interfere with their classroom learning to such extent that no general method of instruction, applied without modification, is likely to work with them, then it is important for us to continue to study the specific causes of reading disability and to provide special facilities for teaching those who do not respond in the classroom. Now I shall venture to state a personal point of view. I simply do not believe that any method applied consistently in the first grade to all children in the same way is going to prevent completely the development of serious reading disabilities. I recall the very high non-promotion rate characteristic of nearly all school systems in the first 30 years of this century, ranging generally from 20 per cent to 40 per cent in the first grade. So far as I can find out, these high rates of nonpromotion were just as common in those communities where instruction was highly phonic as in other communities. So far as I can find out, such countries as England and Sweden, where much of the instruction in reading is thoroughly phonic in its early stages, are just

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as concerned with reading disability as we are. Finally, in my own experience I have run across so many poor readers who seem to have severe deficiencies in auditory perception and the ability to hear how the sounds of words are put together, that I am skeptical that routine classroom instruction, even if highly organized and well-motivated, will suffice to overcome this. So far as the enthusiastic reports on the effects of a thorough phonic start are concerned, the history of science is full of enthusiastic first reports on new discoveries that were not substantiated by later impartial attempts at verification. I therefore feel very strongly that at this point we need to plan and carry out research studies which will have the prospect of providing real answers for our questions. For these studies to be proof against criticism, they should be planned by a group of people who are specialists in various lines. Specialists in method with both opposing points of view should be part of a planning committee along with psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and specialists in research design, testing, and statistics. If possible, foundation support should be secured so that studies can be done on a large enough scale and for a long enough time to come out with evidence that may be accepted as conclusive. Until such studies have been carried out and results have been evaluated, each one of us will have to draw his own conclusions and proceed according to his own best understanding.

Writing Jor Young Readers JOHN TOTTLE *

HE K.EY MAN or woman in the production of reading matter is the writer. It should be clear to anyone who has examined books thoughtfully that the production of reading matter is a job, a craft, like well drilling or house building. In this craft, as in many others, gifted amateurs sometimes appear in defiance of the rules. But in general the production of good, sound reading matter requires, like any other craft, a combination of ideas, skill, and the kind of judgment that usually comes only with experience. In nearly every craft, some form of ability is an asset if not a requisite. Writing is no exception. But in most kinds of writing little native ability is required when it is supplemented by a fair amount of hard work. For all of us, except perhaps the exceptionally gifted, writing has to be learned like any other trade. To be learned, it must be practised—long and lovingly. The adverb lovingly is important. It emphasizes the fact that a writer's toil, however demanding, however exhausting it may be, is never dull. * Editor, the Young Citizen.

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The writer who finds himself bored should turn to something else. If his work puts him to sleep, it will have a like effect on his readers. Professional writing is a form of manufacturing (one which, we may hope, is to remain in the handicraft stage). So writing begins with the collecting of raw materials. The ideas and skill of the artisan turn the material into usable finished products. This kind of manufacturing is subject to limitations like those we find in other commercial production—limitations imposed by the nature of the raw material, the vision and ability of the craftsman, the cost of the operation as compared with the selling price, and the marketability of the product. The successful professional writer is one who has solved his trade's inherent problems. In part-time writing, the first two limitations—those imposed by the nature of the material and the ability of the craftsman—apply exactly as they do in full-time work. The other two—the cost and marketability factors—may or may not apply. Part-time writing is of special importance in the production of reading matter for children. It includes the work of teachers who write only on the chalkboard and for the school mimeograph machine. It includes the work of teachers who re-write printed materials for the slow readers of the class. I understand that many nuns, members of teaching orders, spent last summer adapting text material this way. The pleasure and profit that thousands of children will derive f r o m classroom reading now and in subsequent years will depend upon the work of part-time writers in this field. Some teachers who are part-time writers turn out juvenile fiction. Others write textbooks. These two-profession people—teachers who are able writers—have found their services in some demand by book publishers. They have a marked advantage over professional writers who lack teaching experience. When you sit down at the typewriter, nothing takes the place of the faculty that permits you to conjure u p the children who will read your words. An experienced teacher can see those children because they will be very like the pupils who filled his classroom year after year. The things that made his pupils laugh or yawn or come suddenly alive or frown in perplexity will affect his prospective readers in much the same way. In the press of crowded days, we are tempted to put too much trust

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in such easily observed signs as author and publisher. I do not say, of course, that either author or publisher should be disregarded as possible indications of a book's worth. My point is that, having noted them, we should look behind the title page to see what author and publisher, be they known or unknown, have produced. Few of us have time to peruse all the reading matter we should like to examine. Children's books are pouring from the presses in an almost appalling flood. Some of them are appalling books. Others are excellent. How can we tell which deserve our attention? Several lists appear at regular intervals to help us keep up with the new books. I particularly like the Bulletin of the Children's Book Center of the University of Chicago 1 and the Junior Libraries List that appears monthly in the Library Journal. 2 For old books, there is the Basic Book Collection for Elementary Grades. 3 This dollar paperback lists and describes more than a thousand titles. Also for the elementary grades is Nancy Larrick's interesting new Parents" Guide to Children s Reading. The Pocket Books edition is only 35 cents. 4 Then there is Anne T. Eaton's Treasure for the Taking, a Book List for Boys and Girls} Trained librarians, too, can be a tremendous help in getting good books off their shelves and into our classrooms. All expert assistance is invaluable, but the final decision rests with teacher or parent. He or she knows the children. He or she must make the final selection. Wise selection implies the possession of standards by which books can be judged. These standards, fortunately, need not be complicated or difficult to use. First of all, there is the old rule of thumb. Glance through the book. If you find youself wondering, "Isn't there anything better than this for the children to spend their time on ?"The answer is always "Yes!" Shut the book with a snap and go on to another. You know that childhood is too short for the reading of all the fine books, old and new, that are offered it. 1 University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois. • R. R. Bowker Company, 66 West 45th Street, New York 36, N.Y. * American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago 11, Illinois. 1 Pocket Books, Inc., Mail Service Department, 630 Fifth Avenue, New York 20, N.Y. (Send five cents extra for handling.) s The Viking Press Inc., 625 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N.Y.

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We must never, never think of reading as mere busywork. If busywork is required, let the children draw or weave baskets or assemble cutouts from breakfast-food boxes. There is something sacrilegious in the idea that reading should be employed for the physical restraint of children, as if it were an invisible strait jacket. Such an idea belongs in the same category as the old characterization of the church as an auxiliary of the police. It cannot be denied that a teacher breathes a sigh of relief when she looks about her classroom and sees her charges engrossed in reading. When she does, she richly deserves her respite, for she has managed to match children and books successfully. Otherwise, her pupils would not be engrossed. Such reading is not busywork. To be engrossing, a book must have something to say. I don't mean that it must necessarily provide instruction, in the usual meaning of that term. But it must offer the reader an experience of some sort. Reading for fun is surely a legitimate activity. The fun may be derived from nonsense, too. But the nonsense should be of the kind which has some meaning. When children are in the mood for nonsense, you can give them Milne's "Sir Thomas Tom of Appledore," Ogden Nash's "Adventures of Isabel," or some of the better limericks. Such verses and good pieces of nonsense prose are capable of creating ridiculous worlds in which the child can disport himself for a time. One question, then, in evaluating a book might be "Has this book something to say, even if that something is only delightful nonsense ? Does it offer the child a small cosmos to explore, an adventure in which he can participate ?" Now for another necessary question "Does this book fit the child I have in mind ?" Every book is reached by the rung of a ladder. The rung may be an earlier book. It may be an experience. It may be a felt need or a keen interest. But it must be there or the book cannot really be read. In Newburyport, Massachusetts, stands the home of self-styled "Lord" Timothy Dexter who made a fortune by such prodigies of salesmanship as persuading colonists of the sweltering West Indies to buy warming pans. If our persuasive powers match those of Dexter, we may charm pupils into starting books that are not what they need

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or wish. But in the end we shall have no such success as Lord Timothy's. His customers discovered that long-handled warming pans made good molasses ladles. Our customers will find only frustration and the bitterness that comes from failure. If the book does not suit the child, you have set him an impossible task. You can force him to read the words. You may require him to write a report. But if he lacks the ladder that would enable him to reach the book it must still escape his grasp. Reading is a form of thinking. If the book is not thought, it is not read. Reading experts have made us conscious of vocabulary and idea density. They tell us that level of difficulty is important, and we have no reason to doubt them. On the other hand, old-timers regale us with accounts of their precocious childhoods. They live again those happy evenings with St. Nicholas, the Youth's Companion, and (we may suppose) the Atlantic Monthly. Today's children are coddled, such people feel. Everything is made too easy. There is too much defining, explaining, preteaching. What about these divergent points of view—the reading expert's and the old-timer's? Can they possibly be reconciled? I think they can if we go back to the ladder metaphor. A book may appeal to a child because he is ready for it. His ladder of experience with other books and life itself have brought him to the point where he can handle its vocabulary and ideas. The reading expert is right in saying that normally we should try to be sure this is the case. But a child may want to read and may read successfully a book that would seem to be too much for him in vocabulary and content. Here the rung of the ladder is a strongly felt need or a keen interest in the subject. We have all seen children read difficult directions for assembling a toy or machine—directions that may have been intended for adults and were certainly written by someone who had no experience in teaching children. Interest is a powerful ally in helping young readers help themselves. Like the enthusiasts who pored over St. Nicholas, the children who want to read will read in spite of the material's difficulty. Since interest is so important a factor, we should make all possible use of it. Emphasis on this point may be viewed with suspicion by

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those who fear molly-coddling and detest sugar coating. But let not their hearts be troubled. In the very nature of things, young people exposed to a balanced education will always encounter material that holds little or no interest for them. There is quite enough of such material to serve the time-honoured purposes of the mental discipline that Latin teachers and others have told us about. Let's not overstock by making everything dull. An English schoolmaster once told me of a colleague at Eton who had this to say about formulating an adequate curriculum: "It doesn't much matter what you teach a boy so long as he loathes it." Most of us—on both sides of the Atlantic now, I suppose—have a very different viewpoint. We want girls and boys to like what we teach. Our writers should do all they can to make the children's reading matter interesting—all, that is, except resort to sugar-coating or the use of extraneous devices. Most of us agree about sugar-coating. In the first place, it is a dishonest attempt to disguise medicine or vitamins as candy. Second, the child may simply lick the sugar off the top. He can like the frosting and still loathe the stuff we want him to swallow. Extraneous devices are sometimes employed in desperate teaching situations. When the situation is bad enough, this last resort of teachers may be justified. But writers have no license to employ it. At best such devices divide attention. They oblige the reader to cope with two situations instead of one. At worst, they can leave him hopelessly confused as he tries to relate completely unrelated factors. The writer has no business lacing his exposition with material foreign to it. He should do no more than see that the interesting aspects of his subject reveal themselves. And let us not read too much into the word interesting. This adjective is no synonym for thrilling or for that threadbare favorite of advertising hacks, exciting. Those of us who write for children know the futility of trying to excite them. Their daily exposure to TV, the movies, and the horror comics would doom our efforts if nothing else did. But every teacher knows that it is still possible to interest the average girl or boy. And every good teacher knows that the task is worth undertaking. When, therefore, we try to find out whether a book suits

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a child we have in mind, we must not neglect to ask, "Is it likely to interest h i m ? " We should remember, too, that subject matter is not the only factor in determining interest. It is probably less important than presentation. Even high adventure can bore youngsters if its interesting elements are not brought to light. These elements can be obscured by faulty organization, poor writing, and the attempt to crowd in more facts than the situation will carry or the reader can digest. Conversely, so commonplace a subject as the presence of dust in the air can take on an element of drama if skillfully presented. The illustration that occurs to me comes from an adult book, David Cushman Coyle's Conservation.1 But properly read to a sixth grade that understood the situation it could hardly fail to make an impression. In 1935 Dr. Hugh Bennett of the Department of the Interior was asking a Senate committee to increase his funds for attacking the dust bowl. Coyle tells, in a few sentences, what happened on a crucial day: There had been stories in the papers about the dust storms and about how the fanners were moving out. But many of the senators came from states where wind erosion was no problem. They were more worried about erosion of the federal budget and seemed none too eager to accept the recommendations of this bureaucrat. Hugh Bennett was in the position of Moses when Pharaoh refused to let his people go: he needed a miracle. Sure enough, as he sat at the hearing the sun over Washington was blotted out by a great western dust cloud. Bennett stood up before the senators. He pointed out the window and said: "There, gentlemen, goes part of Oklahoma now." And there they saw it, driving past on the wings of the wind. A third obviously necessary question is " C a n this book be trusted ? Is the author being honest with us, and is his material reliable ?" It is essential that these questions can be answered in the affirmative. For two very good reasons, honesty and reliability are of vital importance in books and periodicals meant for children. In the first place, we don't want our girls and boys misled. Will Rogers, you remember, once said, "It ain't so much what you don't know that hurts you. It's what you know that ain't so." We don't want our young people to read that Eskimo families live in snow houses or that Columbus was the first man to realize the 1

New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1957.

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earth is round. More dangerous than such errors, perhaps, are misconceptions developed because the treatment of a subject lacks balance. Dwelling on Japanese silk culture to the neglect of less picturesque but more important industries may leave readers with the impression that silk dominates Japan's textile manufacturing and her export trade. In the second place, children want very much to rely on books they like. The more serious minded among them become indignant when errors appear in print. Such blunders confuse them, shake their trust in the scheme of things, and in addition aren't fair! Grownups, the children feel, are ready enough to correct them when they spell badly or use poor grammar. Yet here are adults who make an error and then callously distribute a million copies of it! Each week the proofs of the Young Citizen are read by a number of people. These people look for errors of fact. They check every word in a hunt for typographical errors. But now and then, in spite of all our care, a mistake gets by. Retribution, in the form of reproachful letters, is sure and swift. Last January we were guilty of an error which was as funny as it was horrendous. The Antarctic journeys of Hillary and Fuchs had led us to tell the sad story of Captain Scott. Then the compositor, making a last-minute change, transposed two letters and spoiled everything. The sentence read, "Our knowledge of all they did comes from a dairy kept by Captain Robert Scott, leader of the unfortunate expeditions." You can imagine with what ironic sallies our readers assailed us. They inquired about the grazing of dairy cattle at the South Pole and wanted to place orders for milk. One boy addressed me personally. "We know, of course, what you meant," he wrote, "but we thought you were supposed to check up on these things." Our correspondents' letters are answered promptly. But neither the writers nor their teachers realize, I suppose, how seriously we take their criticism and how hard we try not to give occasion for it. Far more serious than typographical errors are errors of fact. We in Washington have ready access to persons who can assist us in avoiding them. Government offices, industry and labor headquarters, and foreign embassies help us almost daily in telephone conferences. Frequently we ask the experts to read our copy before it goes to press. These people do not censor our copy. In matters of interpretation, we

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cannot always agree with them. But we like to get their latest facts and and figures and any criticisms they have to offer. When material is to be read by hundreds of thousands of children, no pains should be spared to make it completely accurate. Another question we might ask about a book is this "Does it accomplish what it sets out to d o ? " Before we can answer this question, we must ascertain the book's purpose. Is it to amuse, instruct, or develop certain attitudes? Some juvenile fiction attempts to do all three. Instruction and the development of desirable attitudes are difficult to combine with entertainment. Books that make the ambitious attempt should be scrutinized carefully. In trying to do too much, they may do nothing. A book must be judged not by the good intentions of the author but by how well he succeeds in attaining his objective. Good intentions and poor results are nowhere more evident than in attempts to develop attitudes. We have all read dismal little tracts on tolerance that purport to be real-life stories of childhood. In too many cases they are dull, unreal, and preachy. That combination is unlikely to produce anything but sleep. The fault here does not always lie with the author, except in his having undertaken more than he can do. All writing for children is hampered by lack of space. Whenever you adopt a narrative form to make your exposition more interesting, the available space melts swiftly away. Here we have one reason why it is difficult—not impossible, but difficult—to amuse children while we instruct them. When we attempt to use the narrative form in developing attitudes, the difficulty is even greater. Attitudes form slowly, bit by bit, through months and years of living. They are not shaped by dramatic episodes that make good story material. When, therefore, we write sports and adventure stories that are intended to combat prejudice, we may be doing more than space permits and more than our degree of skill can accomplish. So, to get our message across before the number of words runs out, we resort to banal moralizing and pious exhortation, wringing the words from the throats of our characters no matter how forced they sound. A book reviewer last summer asked rhetorically why we find it so difficult to develop the attitudes we consider good. The Nazis developed attitudes, he said. Communists develop attitudes.

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If we were willing to rear our young in an authoritarian environment where only official propaganda was permitted and where children's emotions could be abused at will, we could turn out our equivalent of the Hitler Youth and the Young Pioneers. Our intention, however, is not to mold children but to help them mold themselves. This is a very different and far more difficult matter. It can be done. It is being done. And books are playing a part in the work. Let us remember, though, that every well-meaning bit of pamphleteering on the juvenile level is not necessarily an effective ally in the fight for tolerance and good citizenship. Instruction is easier than the fostering of desirable attitudes. But, here again, it is the result that counts. A textbook may be filled with facts. It may "cover" the field from one end to the other. But neither the number of facts nor the completeness of the coverage can assure us that classes will learn what it is intended to teach. We hear educators complaining that some books contain too many facts, that they cover too much. What counts is not how much the book offers but how much the child assimilates. It takes long experience to estimate accurately a book's chance of success in attaining its objective. Inevitably we shall find at times that we have overrated a book. When we do, there is no particular cause for worry. The readers will have gotten something from it. Next time our judgment will be better. Finally, we should ask the question, "Is this book well written?" Other things being equal, a well-written book is more likely to be enjoyed and more likely to prove profitable than a book that is poorly written. But the good writing I have in mind is no job for prose stylists such as those who, in adult literature, now and then start appreciative fluttering among reviewers. Writing for children is a simple art which lacks scope for spectacular maneuvers. It has rules and requirements of its own. Juvenile writing should be characterized by ease of flow. No awkward constructions or outlandish word combinations should be permitted to distract attention from the ideas that the words convey. Expression should be simple and direct so that the reader knows at once whether or not he understands the meaning of each statement. Clarity is of first importance, but it should not be the rigid

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transparency of plate glass. This clarity should have the luminosity of sparkling seawater like that we sometimes find in shallows along a rocky shore. Children are life at its liveliest, and we must speak to them in living terms. For this reason, I should not rule out literary touches where vocabulary and other considerations permit them. A verbal flourish can heighten the emotional impact of a significant point. I consider that appeals to the child's emotions are permissible when they are made responsibly, with a decent restraint, and not too often. Literary touches, deftly handled, can add interest to the discussion and give at least some children an appreciation for the better kinds of writing. Before closing, I should like to say something about illustrations. We must never think of them as mere decorations. Though they serve admirably in brightening the printed page and arousing interest, neither of these is their primary purpose. The purpose of each map and picture is the same as that of each paragraph—to convey an impression. Some impressions can be conveyed more effectively by words; others, by pictures. The writer's co-worker is the artist. Without adequate illustrations, no book for children can accomplish its mission. Let me sum up now the points I have made. To provide good reading for our girls and boys, we must give them: Material written by capable craftsmen who, whether famous or not, can solve the problems of their exacting profession Material that is worth the reader's time, that is able to offer him an experience of some sort Material within the child's reach because of either previous experience or a strong interest. Material trustworthy as to facts and balance Material oriented toward a worthwhile objective and capable of attaining it Material in which good writing is supplemented by adequate and artistic illustrations There may have been a time when children who could not read Dickens and Scott had to content themselves for the most part with the adventures of the Rover Boys or the sorrows of Elsie Dinsmore. If there was, it is no longer with us. We live today in a world of literary plenty for ourselves and our children.

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The problems we face are those of discovery and logistics. We know the treasure exists in quantity. The task of teacher, parent, and librarian is to uncover it and put it in the hands of children. Those who like books and children will find pleasure at both ends of the supply line.

A Modern Approach CAROLINE

H

ANDWRITING

to

Handwriting

D. E M E R S O N *

has too long been the step-child of education!

From the glamorous writing of a hundred years ago, with its spidery intricacies, modern handwriting has fallen into low estate. It has not kept up with the times. What can be done about it ? Today, two quite opposite attitudes are common. One is the forcing of a uniform style upon every child, and that style all too often lacking in good looks and distinction. The other is the attitude of laissez faire. Each individual teacher uses the system that appeals to him, and the pupils suffer accordingly. But a third, and middle course, is possible and is being used in many schools. The proponents of this middle course say that it is quite possible to set standards of good writing which are both practical and flexible. Within limits, handwriting may vary decidedly with personal taste. There are many differing types of writing that are all pleasant and easy to read. But all good handwriting must have three qualities. It must be legible, fluent and have some claim to good looks and distinction. What standards, then, should we set before our children, and what limits should be set for reasonable controls? *Handwriting

Consultant,

Charles Scribner's

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1

Basic Handwriting was developed to meet this need and to set these standards. It is a system of handwriting which gives the child the minimum essentials for a simplified joined writing. It allows for individuality, but it sets very definite and tangible bounds. It is developed from and based on the manuscript, or print, writing of the early grades. At present, manuscript writing is very generally used in the first grades. In some schools, however, no attempt is made to teach it, so that it evolves gradually into cursive, or joined writing. Bad habits, such as "patching" letters together, or beginning them in the wrong places are allowed. And, then, manuscript is often abruptly dropped at the end of the first or second grade. The child is plunged into a new type of writing with little connection made with what he has been doing. Moreover, this often occurs just at the time when interest in using writing as a means of expression is just beginning to bud. In reality, manuscript, if well-taught, is an excellent foundation for joined writing. The manuscript letter is the skeleton form. It is the essential part of the letter, which tells you whether you are ordering a skirt or a shirt, or whether you are wishing or washing. Joining strokes are added to these basic letter forms because some people find them convenient, but not for increased ease of understanding. Indeed, joinings often obscure or distort the letter, so that it becomes far more difficult to read. Witness the injunction, " P R I N T , do not write." Basic Handwriting started by analysing those qualities in both joined and unjoined writing which make for legibility, fluency and good looks. These qualities are not difficult to find. They are the same standards used in judging good lettering in the art field, for handwriting is only a rapid, informal style of lettering. These qualities are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Relative proportion between the heights of tall and short letters. Roundness of the curved letters based on o. Straightness of down-strokes. Regularity. Spacing.

1 The Stone and Smalley Basic Handwriting Series, Manuscript to Cursive, Books, I, II, III; Cursive, IV to VII. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 597 Fifth Ave., New York 17, N.Y.

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The problem was then how best to incorporate these qualities in a modern handwriting system for children, which will develop consistently from the first to the twelfth grades. The mechanical side of writing is a matter of gaining muscular control, and, in any training of muscles, consistency is an essential for efficiency. A piano teacher does not start with one type of fingering and change the next year. Learning to type has been reduced to an exact procedure, to save time and effort. In Basic Handwriting, the habits and standards started in the first grade are continued as far as possible unchanged. Let us see how this is done. /TV & ^Q-

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Relative Proportion in Height Between Tall and Short

X,

y

Letters

The manuscript letters in the first book of Basic Handwriting are well proportioned, carefully designed letters that conform to standards of good lettering. The relation between the heights of short and tall letters is one to two. Tall letters are twice as high as short ones. This approximate proportion of two to one is carried on in the cursive writing which evolves from the manuscript. It is an important point for both legibility and good looks. It means that the short letters, which include the all-important vowels, are large in relation to the tall letters. With vowels relatively large, it is easier to tell whether a word is big, bag, bug, beg, or bog. This is in contrast to older styles of writing, where tall letters were three to four times as large as short. The descenders on letters that go below the line keep the same proportion, except in the case of f. Letters that go below the base line, descend half of their length, i.e. they go below the line as far as their height above it.

This exact proportion of two to one gives the student something tangible by which to measure his work. It gives an exact gauge, par-

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ticularly in the matter of size of loops. Of course, too short loops can be as bad as too long ones. Too long ones that intertwine with the top loops on letters below are, perhaps, the commonest ill. Roundness of Curved

Letters

The manuscript letters in Basic Handwriting are formed on the circle, half circle and straight line. An α is a circle with a straight line. The g is a circle with a descending stroke ending in a half circle. This sets a standard for roundness of letter form. Later, if the writing slants, the circle becomes an oval, but it must continue wide and wellrounded enough so the writing is legible and handsome. In order to keep writing well-rounded, the circles must be started at the correct point. The right habit should be encouraged from the first day of writing in the first grade.

_απ

n

Circles should be started well to the right, i.e. make a well-rounded c and then complete the circle to make o. Show the child on the board. "Start here at the right. Go up and over the top, to the left, then down and around." In this way, the child completes the circle at the correct point, so that the letters based on ο, a. d, g, and q may be completed without lifting the pencil. For fluency, each of these letters should be made as soon as possible with a continuous stroke and not be "patched together." The importance of this " u p and over" stroke is very apparent when these letters are joined. The joining stroke must swing far enough to the right before retracing so that the letters will be properly closed. When an older student comes for remedial work, this is the first point to check. Otherwise, d looks like cl, a like u, and g like y. Uniformity of slant is also very much affected by this stroke. ..a?*

«.OCLCCb&CL

c / \

cxi

as*

QALIQIOJCϊ/

o f

a r

α&

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Down-strokes

There are, of course, many up-strokes in cursive writing, but it is always the down-stroke that gives the letter good form and firmness. Try it yourself. If the down-stroke on h, o r / , or k, or j is straight, then the letter cannot be "hunched back," and the loop is less likely to be disproportionately wide. The slant of the lines may be left to individual choice as long as it is not an extreme slant. Basic Handwriting shows a model with a slight forward slant, as that seems to be the commonest preference in the adult world. However, when a child shows a strong tendency to vertical or backhand, it should be respected. Either of the three styles —forward, backhand, or vertical—can meet the three requirements of good writing. However, the slant must be uniform and not too extreme, or both legibility and looks will suffer. The first grade teacher should start this habit of always beginning straight lines at the top and coming down with firmness and assurance. It needs careful attention and review, particularly when joining is started and loops are introduced as joining strokes. Spacing In manuscript, the child is taught to place the letters in a word close together, and to leave a space the width of an ο between words. This makes each word stand out as a compact unit. When joinings are used the same rules should hold. The tendency in the past has been, however, to make joining strokes so long that the writing has sprawled across the page. Thus, in some forms of cursive writing, the distance between letters becomes two or three times the width of the letters themselves. Beginning and ending strokes and flourishes have also been allowed to spoil spacing. In Basic Handwriting these directions are given. 1. Keep connecting strokes short and inconspicuous, so that writing does not sprawl and the basic letter forms are clear. 2. Omit the introductory strokes unless they are necessary to give the letter good form, as in /', t, and j. 3. Omit, or keep small, the end stroke on the final letter of a word. The beauty of writing should be its clarity, not its decorations.

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Basic Handwriting follows the dictates of good m o d e r n design. Function is emphasized, a n d function in the case of writing is ease a n d pleasure of reading. G o o d spacing includes also margins and placement u p o n the page. A well arranged page of good writing is a thing of beauty. It is a distinct pleasure to open a well written letter. In school, pupils should have the f u n of well set up, nicely written pages. Writing is the only craft we all practice. In the past, it has been a very rewarding one to m a n y people, both readers and writers. There is no reason why it should not be so again.

Steps in Introducing

Joinings

These steps have been worked out carefully in the Basic Handwriting Series. They can only be touched u p o n in an article of this sort. T h e steps have been analysed carefully and are t a u g h t in order of difficulty. Joinings are taught gradually. The child uses only those joinings that he has learned to d o correctly and well. In the process of learning, he writes a partially joined hand, but one that retains the p r o p o r t i o n , spacing a n d roundness of the manuscript. H e has at all stages of the transition, a clear, efficient writing. Incidentally, m a n y adults t o d a y write a partially joined hand. Step 1. Add stroke to these letters without spoiling their form.

ndh.ilm.ntiL

ρ

t> UT il

Practice packing letters close together. This gives the appearance of joining but is not real joining. It is practice in compact spacing.

Step 2. Top joinings, such as:

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Step 3. Short and long retrace, e.g.

-CLC-

£ £ L ·

OAJ

j o d

_ a ± _

Step 4. The "up, over and back" stroke. This is a very important stroke and careful practice is given, e.g.

C

h

,

O

P

.

-

y

—

n

g

.

Step 5. Loops—lower and upper—e.g.

-

9

-

9

-

y

-

Step 6. Letter forms which are modified or changed when the letter is joined. These are introduced gradually. They are all based on the manuscript form, except for b, r and s. Careful practice is given on the difficult joinings which they involve, e.g.

Special attention is given to the adding of the third arch to m and the second arch to n. These are confusing as they only occur when the letter is started at the base line, e.g.

. / m o m .

hamjL.. 2 arch m

mOOTL 2 arch η

S.QTa£jJiUrU2,. one arch η

2 arch m

2 arch

η

Psychologically, this gradual approach to joinings is sound teaching procedure. First comes the slogan for children and parents alike, " G o o d manuscript means good cursive!" Then comes the incentive, "When you can form every letter correctly, then we will start joinings."

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And finally, "When you can make the 'up and over' stroke beautifully, then we will learn loops!" The books in the series mentioned are full of many suggestions for arousing interest and providing appropriate drills. As well as setting high standards for artistry in handwriting, they provide material of literary quality. Fluency There is danger lest manuscript remain a slow, " d r a w n " writing. To avoid this, a light smooth movement should be encouraged from the first writing lesson. Manuscript needed so much less drill than the older forms of script, that in some schools all practice for ease and fluency were omitted. This is as unfortunate as it would be in the case of reading. Fluency depends a great deal on the right tool. In the first grade, a very soft lead should be used so that the mark will be satisfactorily dark without undue pressure. A very hard lead should never be allowed in any grade. The school must control the tools if it is to get good writing. Except for a few types,* the ball point pen is unsatisfactory. Most of them must be held in too perpendicular a position to allow good finger and arm movement. A medium stub fountain pen is still the best tool that I know. Handwriting is not mastered until it can be written at a reasonable speed. To achicvc this, enough practicc must be given at cach stage. It is not fair to a pupil to send him, after six years in the elementary school, to junior high unprepared to meet the requirements of the more advanced work. Supervision In some school systems, handwriting supervision is vested in an outside organization. This is probably desirable, unless there is enthusiasm and interest within the system itself. This stimulus, however, is quite possible to provide with a little care and attention from the administration. * M O D - O - M A T I C PEN, Oil Pen Corp., 282 Wampanoag Trail, East Providence, R.I. Also available at Hammet's.

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Frequent exhibitions of handwriting are of interest to students and parents. Such exhibitions may show the work of an entire class, or the outstanding work of several classes. Sets of papers handed in at regular intervals give children, teachers and supervisors a chance to take stock. Handwriting should be fun. Appreciation of effort, uniform standards—such as those described in this article—throughout the school, can go a long way toward getting better writing. The best way to improve handwriting is to give the pupil a sense of achievement and pleasure from his effort.

Putting Spice into MARY

ELISABETH

Spelling

COLEMAN*

NE OF THE earliest studies of achievement in spelling was made by J. M. Rice in 1897, for a series of articles he was writing in the Forum about education. He gave the same word list to children in nineteen cities and came out with the surprising evidence that children who spent forty minutes a day, every day, in spelling were no better spellers than pupils who spent ten minutes each day in spelling. Evidently the amount of time spent is not the crucial factor in spelling success. No elementary teacher today feels that there are forty minutes in a school day for spelling instruction. The problem each class faces is how to get the most learning in the least time. What are efficient ways to teach spelling? Before looking at methods, we have to decide what we want the children to learn. It is generally recognized now that spelling is not an end in itself. One learns to spell in order to be able to communicate in a conventional manner in written language. We spell in the conventional way because variations in spelling tend to get in the way of the comprehension of the reader; misspelled words may distract his

O

* Associate Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania.

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thoughts from the ideas we want him to understand. In order to use spelling well as a tool, then, we want the children to have certain abilities. First, there is a stock of words they ought to know how to spell. Many of these are words which are called "word demons". That is, they do not follow a regular phonic pattern or they are confusing for some other reason. The second aim for pupils in the spelling program is ability to reason out the spelling of new words. This may come about through associations of sounds and letters (phonetic analysis) or through an analysis of root words and affixes (structural analysis). Third, we want pupils to develop a concern for correct spelling. This is the attitude that makes a writer uncomfortable if he is not sure about the spelling of a word and drives him to check it in a dictionary. The fourth valuable learning in spelling is an interest in words. Where does a word come from? Is it the name of a person which has been brought over into common speech? Is it a word from another language which has now become a part of our English speech? Is it a shortened form of a phrase used in the past? Is it a corruption of a foreign word? When we are agreed on the purposes of teaching spelling, we next must look at the people who are learning to spell; that is, our pupils. All people do not spell in the same way. For an experiment, take a pencil and write on the margin of your paper or your program. Try to check on two things at once. First, you will want to spell the word I say. At the same time try to analyze what you are doing. How do you know how to spell the word this way? Write unnatural. Some of you simply write it. This is what Dr. Edward W. Dolch calls hand knowledge. This word has become so familiar that without stopping to think at all, your hand just follows a pattern. Some of you wrote it and looked at it to make sure it was correct. This is eye knowledge, checking the appearance of the written word with the visual image you have in your mind. Sometimes people see a word mentally before they write it. This, too, is spelling by means of a visual image, or eye knowledge. Some people pronounce the word to themselves, usually in syllables. They say "un-nat-u-ral" and so spell it. This is ear knowledge. Some of you may have hesitated because you questioned whether there are one or two r's in unnatural. Then, remembering that a negative prefix usually remains unchanged regardless of the root word which follows it, you wrote un as the negative prefix and then the root natural. This is the way you can tell there will be a double n. Dolch calls it thought

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knowledge. What we know about the meaning of a word, about roots and affixes, about rules for phonetic and structural analysis are included in thought knowledge. Probably every good speller uses each one of these methods. However, some will rely heavily on a visual image. Others will make greater use of an auditory pattern and many will follow through on the various rules and generalizations that Dr. Dolch calls thought knowledge. The good speller is a fluent speller. Most of his spelling is conducted through hand knowledge; that is, without consciously thinking, his hand writes the word in the pattern of the symbol which conveys the meaning the writer wants. Our topic today is "Putting Spice Into Spelling." For the outline which now follows, I am indebted to Miss Ruth Price, a principal in the Philadelphia Schools, who gave me the idea of taking a word which has meaning and using its first letters for points in discussing spelling. The " S " in Spice stands for SENSE. Children spell better if they know and speak freely the word they are writing. Dr. Leta Hollingworth found that children made many more errors on words for which they did not have meanings. In any case, why should a child learn to spell a word for which he has no clear meaning or immediate use? Unless a word is important to him now, he will not be writing it often enough to provide the practice essential to make this word a permanent learning. Meanings of words, even those which are familiar, should be discussed briefly as we begin their study for spelling. This may be done in various ways. Children may illustrate a word by giving its opposite. They may clarify different meanings found for a single word. Students may look for roots in words. Creature comes from create. This helps the pupil remember the ea in the first syllable. Pleasant comes from please which he already knows how to spell. Remembering please he will have less difficulty with the ea in the first syllable of pleasant. The " P " in Spice stands for P R O N O U N C E . Pronunciation helps the child get an auditory pattern. Some children have difficulty in spelling because they do not hear a word clearly. It is justifiable to exaggerate pronunciation to help with spelling. A child who is asked to spell the word arctic may first pronounce it, listening to himself as he over-emphasizes the c at the end of the first syllable. In library he may roll the first r. A teacher in a fifth grade reported that he increased the children's spelling scores on tests, by the simple method of having a

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child stand tall without leaning on any article of furniture, pronounce the word clearly and listen to himself pronounce it before he spelled it. This focused attention on the auditory pattern and helped those children who tend to spell by ear. To help children to become conscious of the importance of sound in determining how a word is spelled, we may sometimes ask them to write parts of words rather than the entire word. A teacher says a list of words, asking the children to write only the first letter of each word. At another time pupils may be asked to write only the final consonant. They may be asked to write the first two letters, or the middle vowel. Hearing the number of syllables in a word is helpful, too. A child who pronounces parade or perhaps as a single syllable or separate as a two syllable word will have difficulty spelling the words correctly. By attention to pronunciation, we can help children focus on the auditory pattern of a word. The visual image of a word is also very important. For this children should INSPECT the word carefully. To learn to spell a word, the pupil must study it in a different way than he did in learning to recognize it in reading. Many a child reads the word running without being conscious of the fact that the final consonant of the root is doubled when the -ing is added. He knows that plurals are sometimes formed by changing the y to i and adding es, but until he writes a word he does not need to know in what roots the ^ is changed. When he is writing, however, he must not only know that such change does take place, but he must know in what words it takes place. To help children get a clear visual image one may ask them to focus attention intently on that image just as we ask children to listen carefully to the auditory pattern. If facilities permit, the teacher may expose a word briefly on a screen in a darkened room. This may be done by using an opaque projector or a slide projector. The word should be shown for a very brief time so that it becomes little more than a flash exposure. Then the children may be asked to keep their eyes on the screen and try to see the word after it is no longer projected. Emphasis on the after-image helps the learner to hold the visual picture in his mind. One advantage of this device is that the room is dark and attention focuses on the one bright spot where the word is projected. With a small group, flash cards may be used to get this rapid picture, but their use is not efficient when there are many children in

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the group. A pupil may look at a copy of the word at his desk, try to get the picture in his mind, and then look away from the copy and write the word. The child should not look at the copy, then at the word he is writing, then back at the copy, then at the word again. Encourage him to get the total picture of the word in mind, then cover up or look away from the copy when he writes the word. The suggested devices in the preceding paragraph have one main purpose, to help the child concentrate on the visual image. CONCENTRATION is an essential element. Intent listening, seeing, analyzing will increase the learning in a given period of time. The child whose mind is wandering will learn less in a half hour than the child who is closely concentrating for much less time. A technique to help children concentrate on a difficult combination of letters in a word is to ask the child to find a second word with the same combination of letters and the same sound. For example, many children in the primary grades reverse the i and r in girl. Ask them what other words have the sound of ir and are spelled with ir. Suppose a child comes up with the word fur. He compares the ur in fur with the ir in girl, thus focusing his attention on the ir, and discards fur. Another child suggests the word pearl. The ear in pearl will be compared with the ir in girl and pearl discarded. Again attention has been placed on the ir in girl. Then someone will offer the word fir or dirt and after comparison the words will be accepted. This technique is helpful where we tend to get reversals, as in from or quiet. Incidentally, what word can you find that goes with quiet ? Diet seems to be the only one. Notice that these combinations of letters may not necessarily represent syllables. This is true in the word quiet. We are looking for a similar pattern of letters and a similar pattern of sound. Older children with a more extensive vocabulary are frequently helped by associating a difficult root word with a derivative which brings out the sound of the letter causing difficulty in the root. For example, the final ar in grammar is easier to remember when one associates it with grammatical·, the sc in muscle may be associated with muscular; the e in comedy with comedian; the mn in autumn with autumnal. Sometimes children make up their own associations, as the child who remembers how to spell loose and lose, by associations in the phrase, loose tooth. The ie combination in piece maybe remembered through the phrase, a piece of pie. Q.Q.A.E.-L

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The final " E " in Spice stands for EXERCISE. The problem is to find opportunities for repetition with a purpose. For those common words which cause difficulty, there may be a list posted on a chart printed large enough that pupils may look at it whenever they wish. This list for frequent reference will be used much more than the dictionary. Children may make charts illustrating the meanings of homonyms. To illustrate the three spellings of to, two, too, the child may make a chart with a picture of children going into school with the words underneath "to school;" beside the picture of two boys might be "two boys;" beside a picture of a boy surrounded by food and looking satiated would be the words "too much". A spelling notebook will provide opportunity for exercise with meaning. The book may be planned so that words are written in the left hand column of the left page and then the word may be repeated in various ways across the left and right pages. There may be various headings on columns. For example, the first column to the left would have the word to be studied; the next column, a matching word; the next column, a plural form, if a noun; in the next column, the word divided into syllables; then other words with the same root, and finally the word used in a sentence. Some of these columns every child might be required to fill in and others might be optional. Word review and practice may come about through games. One that upper grade children seem to like is one in which "it" pronounces three words all of which have one letter in common. The listeners must then identify the letter. The leader might say, " I am in rung, in ring, and in rule. What am I ?" "I am in week, in walk, and in wreck. What a m i ? " "I am in sink, in knife and in skate. What am I ? " What can we do for the child who gets everything right in our selected lists ? He may have his own spelling list for which he is responsible, composed of words which he finds interesting. If this plan is used there should be a limit to the number of words he will have. Some teachers ask the superior speller to put every word which he misspells in written composition on his individual list for learning. The difficulty with this procedure is that the child may be tempted to use a less appropriate word in a composition because he does not know how to spell the one he really wants, and does know how to spell one which will almost fit. There is a danger of lowering quality of composition if the child knows that every misspelled word will go on his spelling list.

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If from his misspelled word list he is allowed to select twelve or fourteen for mastery, he will be freer in his writing. The superior speller may use the dictionary to select synonyms and antonyms for the words on a class list. He may be given the job of seeing how many meanings he can find for selected words. He may make lists of words containing a silent letter. He may make derivatives from root words, write out his suggestion for meaning and then check with the dictionary. He may study the history of selected words and report to the class. It is highly desirable for the superior speller to work in special projects with two or three others who are also able in spelling. The discussion which children have in working out the definition of words or in going over the derivation of words is an important part of their learning. The gifted child at the elementary school level frequently resents being asked to work alone on a project different from other pupils' work. He will enjoy working with several children with whom he can discuss his findings, resulting in a mutual sharpening of minds. The child who has a great deal of trouble in spelling will also need special assignments. He should have a shorter list and these words should have a common element. He will need plenty of time when tested on the words he has studied. Often a teacher has a child who fails woefully on a spelling test though he tells her he spelled every word correctly the night before. He is probably telling the truth. If he took a spelling test in which the speed of pronunciation of words was geared for most of the class, there was probably too little time for him to write the words. If you look at the papers of most of these children, you will find that the first two, three or four words are correct and only after that does the spelling break down. The pupils get so tense trying to finish words faster than their normal pace that they become confused. They should have their words dictated in a very small group or individually so that the teacher can be sure that each child has finished writing the word and has a breath before the next word is pronounced. These children will need extra help on hearing the sounds of letters and identifying the letters. The technique mentioned earlier in which the teacher pronounces a word, asking the children to identify the middle vowel or the consonants at the beginning or the end, is helpful to the poor speller. Above all, he needs recognition when he has reasoned well in spelling, and emphasis on his successes. It is far better to mark

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on his paper the number of words right than the number with which he has failed. By emphasizing the Sense and Pronunciation of words and the learning techniques of Inspection, Concentration and Exercise, we can help children enjoy the mastery of spelling so that written words become efficient tools for expressing thought.

Creating Arithmetic Use oj Exploratory

Readiness by Materials

F O S T E R E. G R O S S N I C K L E *

T

HE TENTH AND Sixteenth Yearbooks of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1 gave the initial impetus for teaching meanings in arithmetic. After the introduction of these yearbooks a number of professional books dealing with the teaching of arithmetic gave emphasis to learning of this kind. The Fiftieth Yearbook 2 not only advocated that learning should be meaningful but also gave suggestions for implementing a program for teaching arithmetic meaningfully. Today teachers generally agree that learning should be meaningful. However, they do not agree on how to implement this kind of learning. The plan which follows shows how to create readiness for the study of arithmetic so that processes and procedures will be meaningful to the pupil. The arithmetic classroom must be equipped as a laboratory. The * Professor of Mathematics, Jersey City State College, Jersey City, N.J. 1 Published by the Council in 1935 a n d 1941, respectively. - The Fiftieth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II, C h a p t e r 9, C h i c a g o : University of C h i c a g o Press, 1941.

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pupil must discover for himself mathematical facts and principles instead of learning them by rote. In order to make discoveries of relationships among quantities, the pupil must have access to different kinds of materials. It is as essential to have the arithmetic classroom equipped with materials which are used for making discoveries about quantities as it is to have a laboratory equipped with apparatus used in teaching the sciences. The same principle of learning by discovery applies in each of these subjects. The three kinds of materials for equipping the classroom may be classified as exploratory, visual, and symbolic. We shall be concerned predominantly with exploratory materials. The term manipulative as applied to materials is more familiar to teachers than the term exploratory. All objects which can be touched, moved, or manipulated are classified either as manipulative or exploratory. Such objects as rulers, disks, a flannel board, or an abacus are listed in this category. The thing which distinguishes an exploratory material from one which is manipulative is the use made of it. An exploratory material is used to enable a pupil to discover a fact or a principle which he could not discover or understand when dealing with symbols. A manipulative material is used predominantly for purposes of manipulation or entertainment. A pupil may not understand the relationship between halves and fourths or other fractions in the family of fractions having denominators which are powers of 2. However, by the use of fractional cutouts he may be able to discover relationships among these fractions. When a pupil follows this procedure, the fractional cut-outs are exploratory. On the other hand, the pupil may understand the relationships among these fractions but he uses the materials to demonstrate a fact because he enjoys working with these fractional cut-outs. In that case the use of these materials neither enables the pupil to make new discoveries nor does it serve as an aid in his thinking. Therefore, these materials are merely manipulative. Manipulative and exploratory materials are of two kinds. First, some manipulative materials are used in teaching our so-called system of weights and measures. Such items as rulers and measures of weight and capacity are placed in this classification. Materials of this kind have significance because they are used in the social applications of number. Second, other manipulative materials include those which

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are designed specifically for teaching some concept of number and the number system. Some of the familiar materials in this group include disks or markers, an abacus, or a flannel board. Materials of this kind have no social significance. The arithmetic classroom should be supplied with both of these types of manipulative materials. We shall be concerned primarily with those materials which are useful in teaching some phase of number and the number system. The pupil uses a ruler and other instruments of measurement in order to learn how to apply them to our various units of measure. Predominantly, he has to use these measures and many other different kinds of measures by rote learning. It is not possible for a pupil to discover our different units of measure because there is no pattern or system which exists among different units of measure. A pupil cannot discover that there are 16 ounces in a pound or that a cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds. These facts must be learned as isolated facts. Therefore, the use of objective materials in learning our system of measures does not imply that a pupil discovers a pattern as he should when he learns about the structure of the number system. Although the materials for teaching measurement are manipulative, they help the pupil to clarify his concept of the magnitude or quantity of the measure represented. The second group of objective measures should enable the pupil to discover the meaning of the basic processes and of place value in our number system. Materials which aid the pupil in learning these things are exploratory. The terms visual and symbolic materials are descriptive of the kinds of materials in these classifications. Pictures and projective materials constitute visual materials. Textbooks or workbooks represent symbolic materials. Need for Exploratory

Materials in the Classroom

The results of a recent questionnaire study showed that over 90 per cent 1 of teachers of arithmetic who were sampled believe in the use of manipulative materials for the classroom. It is in order to inquire 1 Analysis of Research in the Teaching of Mathematics 1955 and 1956, p.45, Washington, D . C . : U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, 1958.

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why these materials are essential in teaching this subject. They have a role to perform because of the nature of learning. There are in arithmetic two characteristics of learning which merit consideration. First, learning is a thinking process and second, learning is a growth process. The use of objective materials is vital in both of these areas of learning. First, meaningful learning involves thinking. A pupil may learn by imitation or by repetition, but then he would not understand what he has learned. Drill or practice fixates learning, but it does not create meaningful learning. A pupil learns arithmetic meaningfully when he finds the answers to quantitative or problematic situations. The teacher must be sure that the pupil encounters questions involving amounts and relationships among quantities. The pupil may be able to answer these questions from his knowledge and understanding of number. On the other hand, he may not be able to comprehend a quantitative situation without the help of objective materials. The use of these aids enables him to make discoveries that he could not make by using symbols. To illustrate, a pupil may have 12 disks which he groups to discover the meaning of the following facts represented by symbols: 6 + 6 = 12 2 x 6 = 12 12 = 1 0 + 2 12- 6= 6 12+ 2 = 6 12 = 3 x 4 In each case the teacher directs questions about these quantities and the pupil finds the answers by objectifying the situation with disks or markers. The teacher creates a problem situation and the pupil discovers the answer. The pupil has to think about a quantitative situation. Learning takes place under such conditions. Second, learning that is meaningful involves growth. A pupil in the second grade can find how many 4-cent stamps he can buy with 10 cents providing he has 10 pennies or markers of some kind to use to objectify the situation. He will check off 4 cents or markers to represent one stamp and then repeat the process. He will find that he can buy two 4-cent stamps and have enough pennies remaining to buy a 2-cent stamp. He solves this problem at an immature level of operation and discovers its meaning and the answer. A pupil at this grade level would not understand or give the solution shown on the 2r2 right. At the conventional fourth-grade level he should be 4) 10 able to give and interpret the symbolic solution shown. There is a great span in difficulty in the level of operation from the use of ob-

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jective materials and symbolic materials in solving the given problem. Learning consists in growth from an immature or low level of abstraction to the mature level at which a pupil gives automatic responses with confidence and assurance that the answer is correct. When a pupil achieves the latter stage of development, Brownell characterizes this kind of learning as meaningful habituation. The acceptance of learning as involving thinking and growth implies that the pupil has access to exploratory materials. He needs these materials to objectify situations which he cannot understand by reading the printed page or by working with symbols. These materials are essential for creating readiness for the more abstract form of learning. Exploratory materials are pretextual materials which are essential for creating readiness for textual materials. It is evident that objective materials are useful at an immature level of operation. Therefore, the kinds of materials and their uses constitute a vital problem in the teaching of arithmetic. Which, Where, and When? The teacher of arithmetic faces three problems pertaining to the acquisition and use of exploratory materials. They are: Which materials should be selected ? Where should these materials be acquired ? When should these materials be used? It is very difficult for the teacher of arithmetic to decide which objective materials to include in equipping the classroom as a laboratory. An increasing number of commercial houses have such a wide variety of materials for sale that it requires fine discrimination in order to make the proper selection. Often commercial hucksters peddle their wares so effectively that the classroom may be filled with gadgets and not with instructional aids to help the pupil in learning by discovery. It is much better to have a few materials used effectively than to have a great supply of them that are seldom if ever used as a means of creating thinking on the part of the learner. The problem of storing a wide variety of materials creates a situation in most classrooms that results in the disuse of these materials even though they may be effective instructional aids.

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The second problem dealing with exploratory materials pertains to the place to acquire them. The teacher must decide if the materials are to be commercially made or homemade. Cost is a factor in purchasing commercial equipment. The beneficial results which accrue from making materials must be considered in equipping the arithmetic classroom. The class which makes certain materials should have a better understanding of them than the class which does not participate in their construction. Very probably a combination of commercial and homemade materials is desirable. The teacher should not be expected to make a flannel board. The cost of a manufactured flannel board is moderate and the product usually is superior to one that is homemade. An abacus is an essential material for the arithmetic classroom in the first six grades. Either a commercial product or a homemade abacus should be satisfactory. A modern abacus should contain at least four rods each containing 9 beads or at most 10 beads, preferably in color. The class can make an abacus by boring holes in a block of wood and inserting dowels. Disks with holes may be used as beads on the dowels. If the pupil understands that only nine markers are used on a dowel to represent a number, then a homemade abacus of this kind is as effective as a modern abacus produced commercially. The third problem pertaining to exploratory materials is the most difficult to answer. This problem deals with the element of time which is devoted to the use of these materials. The teacher must decide when to introduce these materials and how long to continue their use. No fixed answer can be given to this problem. However, the following three criteria should govern the use of exploratory materials in the teaching of arithmetic. Use exploratory materials to introduce andjor enrich the meaning of a mathematical concept. Use exploratory materials to clarify a quantitative situation which the pupil does not understand when it is expressed in symbolic form. Discontinue the use of exploratory materials as soon as the pupil is able to operate with understanding at a more mature level of abstraction.

The application of the first and second principles places the proper emphasis upon the use of exploratory materials. For the sake of

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emphasis, it is repeated that the value of these materials consists in their use as instructional aids in thinking through a quantitative situation and not in providing an activity in the classroom. It is only as an activity is directed towards the solution of an immediate problem that the activity is an integral part of a learning situation. If these materials are to be useful in creating learning situations, then many of the commercial gadgets now available for equipping the classroom have no place in an effective program in the teaching of arithmetic. Often the application of the third criterion is faulty. Sometimes the pupil uses blocks, disks, or other types of markers in dealing with a basic fact, such as 3 5 = 8, when he should be working with symbols. On the other hand, there are many instances in which the pupil does not understand the symbolic work, such as dealing with basic facts, so that he must learn it by rote. In this case the pupil should be working with exploratory materials and not with symbols. The teacher demonstrates artistry when she has the pupils working at the highest level of abstraction at which they can understand, succeed, and feel secure in the work they are doing. On the other hand, the teacher displays a lack of artistry whenever she permits pupils to operate at either a higher or a lower level of abstraction than they can understand. There is no formula which will enable the teacher to determine when a pupil should work with exploratory materials and when he should work with symbols. A safe plan to follow is to have pupils use these materials when the class begins a new topic, such as the addition of fractions when introduced at about the fifth grade. Each pupil should have fractional cut-outs to find the sum of like fractions. The teacher should ask searching questions to determine whether a pupil understands the meaning of a fraction and how to add like fractions. F r o m the accuracy of the responses and the confidence that the pupil gives to these questions, the teacher should be able to determine whether the pupil should continue to use these cut-outs. If the pupil demonstrates that he understands the work, he then should deal with symbolic materials as given in his textbook. It is evident that all of the pupils in a class will not be ready to operate with symbolic materials at the same time. The fast learners will need only a limited usage of exploratory materials. The slow learners, however, may need to use these materials for a much longer

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period than required by most of the class. Regardless of the time needed, the pupil continues to use these instructional aids as long as they enable him to feel more secure than he would be without theii use. One of the effective means of meeting the problem of individual differences is the formation of groups within the class. These groups should be formed according to the level of abstraction at which the pupils in each group are able to operate. If the class deals with addition or subtraction of like fractions, the pupils who can operate successfully with symbolic materials should constitute one group. The pupils who must work with cut-outs should constitute another group. Each group would work the same examples given in the textbook but the level of abstraction at which the group works differentiates the operation. One effective way to provide for differences in ability represented in a class is to have groups work at different levels of abstraction. Teacher and Pupil Kits The arithmetic classroom should contain a minimum list of exploratory materials which are useful in helping the pupil discover the mathematical phase of number. These materials should be inexpensive and effective instructional aids in learning by discovery. The number of these materials in the classroom should depend upon the teacher's choice and the use she makes of them. The list of minimum materials may be considered a kit of materials. This kit should contain materials for class demonstration purposes and for pupil discovery. The materials for demonstration purposes constitute the teacher's kit; those for pupil discovery constitute the pupil's kit. The materials in the two types of kits should supplement each other. Thus, if a pupil uses disks or markers at his seat to represent a number, the teacher should have some kind of material, such as a flannel board with markers, to represent the same number for a class demonstration. The teacher demonstration provides a suitable means for the pupil to check his work. The writer's experience indicates that many teachers of arithmetic use demonstration materials, but only a limited number provide kit material for the pupil. A satisfactory program for teaching arithmetic should provide for both kinds of materials. The pupil should use his kit material to make individual discoveries. The class should discuss

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these discoveries. Then the teacher with pupil help should provide a class demonstration of the best way to perform a given process. The class may begin with the process of finding the sum of two twoplace numbers involving carrying. Using the example given, each pupil would use his exploratory materials to find the sum. 27 The pupils would use a variety of ways to find the answer. -f 18 After a discussion of these ways, the teacher would give a demonstration with suitable material to show the best way to add in the example. If the pupil does not have exploratory materials to find the sum, he may not fully utilize the principle of discovery which is most essential in meaningful learning. He may follow by rote the pattern of the class demonstration. But then he would not discover the pattern of regrouping which is necessary in carrying. Rather than give a minimum list of kit materials for one or more grades, the following list of materials is effective for teaching the major topics or processes which are introduced in the first six grades. Topic Basic facts in addition and subtraction Basic facts in multiplication and division The four processes with whole numbers Common fractions Decimal fractions

Pupil Kit Markers Strips of geometric designs Squares and rectangular strips Fractional cut-outs Squares and rectangular strips

Teacher Kit Flannel board or place value pockets Place value pockets Place value pockets and an abacus Flannel board with fractional cut-outs Place value pockets

The table shows that a flannel board with fractional cut-outs is an essential item for a teacher's kit. The cut-outs should be made from circles about 10 inches in diameter. The cut-outs preferably should be in color and lined on both sides with flannel having a good nap. Most teachers are familiar with a chart having place value pockets. This kind of chart can be made of oaktag at a cost of approximately 15 cents. We have already discussed the abacus. The materials listed for the pupil's kit consist of markers, strips of geometric designs, and squares and rectangular strips. All of these materials should be made from construction paper or oaktag. The cost to equip each pupil with these materials should be insignificant.

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Markers consist of small cards approximately 1 J" κ 2" which the pupil uses to represent a number fact. Thus, to find the sum of 5 and 8, he would represent each number by a marker and find the sum and represent it as 1 ten and 3 ones. The strips of geometric designs are used in discovering the multiplication and division of facts. Thus, to find the answer to the grouping, 3 x 4 , the pupil would use three strips of construction paper, each containing four circles, squares, or some other geometric design. The squares and rectangular strips are effective aids for the pupil to use to discover the processes in both whole numbers and decimals. A sheet of oaktag or similar material 12" χ 18" crossruled in J-inch squares will make a total of 360 f-inch squares. This sheet can be cut so as to provide each pupil with the following: 1 square containing 20 strips each containing 10 squares each containing 10 strips each containing 10 strips each containing

100 J-in. squares 10 j-in. squares 1 f-in square 2 J-in. squares 3 J-in. squares

To divide in the example, 2)136, the pupil would represent 136 with 1 large square, 3 strips of 10's, and 6 ones or some combination of squares or strips to represent 1, 2, or 3. To divide the number represented into two equal parts, he would change or regroup the large square so that he could form two equal groups. After the pupils discover how to divide the number 136 by using their kit materials, the teacher gives a class demonstration by using markers in place value pockets. The teacher regroups 136 as 13 tens and 6 ones. The tens are divided. There will 68 be 6 groups of 10's with one ten remaining. This one ten is 2) 136 then regrouped as 10 ones, making 16 ones which are 12 divided into two equal parts. The class demonstration — shows the concise way the race has discovered how to 16 divide. The pupil may have discovered an immature way 16 to divide but he demonstrated that he understood the — meaning of division. The class demonstration pointed the way for learning a more mature procedure to follow for division. The large square and the rectangular strips are cross-ruled on one side and blank on the other side. The unruled side of the large square

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may then represent one whole and each strip one-tenth (.1) and a small square one-hundredth (.01). The pupil uses these unruled materials to discover the processes with decimals in the same way he uses the reverse side to discover the processes with whole numbers. The pupil's kit for fractions consists of oaktag disks about five inches in diameter. The cut-outs should consist of two wholes and two circles each cut into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, and perhaps eighths. From the above list of materials it is seen that the kit for a pupil at any one grade level would contain approximately two different kinds of inexpensive materials which he should cut from oaktag or construction paper. He should keep his materials in a Manila envelope. The pupil must have a flat top desk so that he can use his materials when needed. It is readily seen that he would use these materials only during those class periods in which a new topic or process is introduced. The teacher should apply the criteria mentioned in the use of exploratory materials. These materials are not used during periods of fixation or review work. The writer showed elsewhere 1 that the subject matter in a textbook in arithmetic contains material that may be classified as developmental, practice, and social applications. The use of exploratory materials is a prerequisite for an understanding of the developmental work given in the textbook. The use of the classroom as a laboratory in dealing with exploratory materials creates the essential readiness for the pupil to read the verbal development given in the textbook. A program for teaching arithmetic which does not provide the kinds of exploratory materials to enable a pupil to acquire the necessary background to understand the verbal exposition of a process in the textbook cannot be considered adequate in today's schools. 1

Foster E. Grossnickle, "How to Use the Arithmetic Textbook," ΝΕΑ Journal, Vol. 47, pp. 41-42, January, 1958.

Reinforcing

Learning in the

Elementary School Subjects P E R C I V A L M.

SYMONDS

T

this paper includes a technical expression "reinforcing learning" which perhaps ought first to be defined. The term reinforcement has become accepted in recent years rather generally by psychologists to designate a class of stimuli which when responded to tend to guarantee that a response previously made will be repeated. Those of you who are familiar with modern discussions in learning will recognize that arranging conditions so that a response will be repeated is the heart of what we conceive learning to be. Reinforcement first appeared as a technical term in the psychological literature around 1927 in the translation of one of Pavlov's books dealing with conditioned reflexes. 1 As you perhaps remember Pavlov a Russian physiologist studied the factors which were related to the secretion of saliva, using dogs as his subjects. He arranged an apHE TITLE OF

* Teachers College Columbia University. 1 1. P. Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes, p. 35, New York: Oxford University Press. 1927.

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paratus which enabled him to collect saliva secreted which could be weighed and measured. It is well known that saliva is secreted if an animal is presented with food. Pavlov experimented with ringing a bell simultaneous with, or just before the presentation of the food. After this combination of stimuli had been presented on several occasions it was found that ringing the bell alone was sufficient to stimulate a secretion of saliva, something that the ringing of the bell could not have done at the beginning of the experiment. But then it was discovered that with continuous ringing of the bell the secretion of saliva subsided and could only be returned to full strength by the reinforcement of the presentation of the food. In other words, a response to a conditioned stimulus has to be reinforced continually by the simultaneous presentation of an unconditioned stimulus, in this case the food. Although the use of the term reinforcement in current learning theory is not identical with the use of the term in classical conditioning the term serves very usefully in the present context. Whereas in conditioning it is a conditioned stimulus (the ringing of the bell) that is reinforced by the unconditioned stimulus (the presentation of the food), in learning it is the response that is reinforced by the reinforcing stimulus. As an illustration, a rat in a special cage discovers in his random exploration that if he places his feet on a bar thereby depressing it, a pellet of food drops into a cup. This phenomenon—the sudden appearance of the food—causes the rat to repeat the pressing of the bar, the act that just preceded the dropping of the pellet, in preference to the many other activities of a rat of exploring, sniffing and the like. Or to give an illustration with a child, if a child responds with 9 when presented with 5 and the teacher says "right" that + 4 child tends to say 9 when he sees 5 on subsequent occasions rather + 4 than saying some other number. Some psychologists maintain that this latter is not a true illustration of reinforcement. Reinforcement they say must have some basic satisfaction, such as food; whereas saying "right", if a satisfaction at all, is very far from being a basic satisfaction and is more in the nature of "information" than what is technically thought of as reinforcement. I believe that this is an unnecessary quibble and that it can be shown

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that saying "right" provides a satisfaction, if it is effective, not unlike the satisfaction from food. However, saying "right" does not necessarily serve as a reinforcement in all instances (certainly with a subject who does not understand English, perhaps also with a child who does not care whether he is right or wrong) so that if saying "right" operates as a reinforcement it does so as a result of prior learning and not because of any inherent or native tendency. Reinforcement, then, is some stimulus, such as the presentation of food or saying "right", which tends to make the act which precedes it be repeated. Another term for reinforcement is reward. Psychologists are now generally agreed that learning takes place only when an act or response is reinforced, that is, the act is followed by some event which serves as a satisfying stimulus, a stimulus that is a token to the child that he is on the right track and that if he continues in this same direction he will reach some goal that is important to him. The reinforcements that we can use most heavily in school are the satisfactions that come from interpersonal relations. It is true that one can use candy as a reward and this may serve as a very effective reinforcement but one could easily ruin the health of a child if candy were the only reinforcement used in amounts necessary to produce the learning expected in school. The reinforcements that must be depended on are, (1) the teacher's acceptance of the pupil by her friendliness and signs of liking and being pleased with the child as a child, and, (2) her praise, approval, signs of satisfaction with what the pupil does and what he accomplishes. In a way the second of these depends upon the first. If a child does not like the teacher, if he mistrusts her, and feels she does not like him, and thinks she is his enemy or does not admire him, then he would not receive praise and approval and it will not serve as a reinforcement to learning, B. F. Skinner, from his study of rats and pigeons believes that every separate act must be reinforced if learning is to take place. Unless some guide or clue is given as to the correctness or acceptability of a response, then the learner will be insecure, and errors will appear. In addition, the reinforcement must follow directly on the responses in a matter of seconds or minutes and if the reinforcement is delayed even an hour, a day, or a week it loses its effectiveness. So the illustration is given that the child whose homework exercises are not corrected for twenty-four hours or longer receives no guide as to the correctness of his work

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when it is needed, and there is wonder that learning takes place at all. Skinner has contrived machines or instruments which provide reinforcements in learning automatically. 1 A child has the task of doing some sums in arithmetic. An exercise appears in the window of the machine and the child indicates his answer by moving one or more slides upon which the digits 0 through 9 are printed. After the child has indicated his answer, he turns a knob. If the answer is correct the knob turns freely and some result such as the ringing of a bell occurs which serves as a conditioned reinforcement—a signal that the answer is right. If the answer is not right the knob will not turn and the child must try some other answer. Only when he has given the correct answer and it is appropriately reinforced will the exercise or question change in the window of the machine. Here instead of having to have a teacher check or correct the answer the child can do it himself and he can proceed with his learning as fast as he wants to. Usually in arithmetic, since there is such a big space of time between the doing of an exercise and its correction, exercises have to be independent of one another. That means of course that progress into complex operations come slowly. But with mechanical reinforcement it is possible to use material in which one problem depends on the answer to the preceding, and in this way complicated processes, such as long division (to use an illustration) can be learned quickly and efficiently. Skinner is experimenting with the learning required in a number of school subjects such as spelling, reading, high school physics, logic, verbal thinking. At the recent meeting of the American Psychological Association he described the process of learning concepts in physics through the use of a learning apparatus. An important phase of preparing material for automatic learning is preparing schedules or "frames" for learning. This means breaking the learning down into separate elements and providing the repetition of responses in different contexts that will give the learning the desired generalization. 1

B. F. Skinner, "The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching," in Current Trends in Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences, pp. 38-58, Eighth Annual Conference on Current Trends in Psychology, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956. Also, in the Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 24, pp. 86-97, 1954.

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Many teachers are horrified at reducing learning to an automatic process. Somehow it seems to take away the human and natural element which we have found an important ingredient in teaching. In my second year of high school teaching many years ago and before I knew anything about the nature of the learning process, I reduced the algebra that I was teaching to a series of graded exercises, each of which introduced a new principle. The pupils were required to perform each exercise or group of exercises correctly before going on to the next. I did not have an automatic method of correction but I "corrected" the exercises of each pupil in person. But the principle of reinforcement was the same. Pupils were permitted to go ahead as fast as they wished and naturally some pupils proceeded at a much faster rate than others. Today I have discovered that this method was based on essentially sound psychological principles. If the principle that learning takes place only when the response that one wishes to be repeated are reinforced is sound, then of course it is extremely important that the first responses are the correct or desirable responses. This presents one of the most difficult dilemmas in the process of teaching. If a child is left free to make an initial incorrect response there is apt to be floundering and confusion and loss of valuable time until he chances upon the correct response. Not only that but there is a probability that the incorrect response is subtly reinforced so that it is repeated and learned. If a child makes an incorrect response and the teacher says nothing the child may interpret this as meaning that what he has done is acceptable and he will continue to make and to learn this wrong response. How can one ensure that the first response is a correct one ? The simplest way to tell or show or guide the child. For some reason teachers have a repugnance to such direct methods. There is a widespread belief that what the child discovers for himself is more valuable than what he is told. This has never been experimentally verified and until it is I believe we should hold open minds on this issue. From the theoretical point of view there would seem to be no reason of why selfdiscovered responses should be more valuable than responses that the child is directed to make. There have been others, notably Pressey, 1 who preceded Skinner in 1

S. L. Pressey, "A Simple Devise which Gives Tests and Scores and Teaches," School and Society, Vol. 23, pp. 373-376, 1926.

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devising automatic learning devices, Pressey's method uses multiple choice—that is, a child is presented with four alternatives as possible answers to a question from which he must choose one as a correct response. Skinner holds the point of view that the free response is superior to the multiple choice method. With free choice sufficient guidance can be given beforehand to insure the correct response, but with multiple choice any of the alternatives is equally likely to be chosen with a probability of three out of four (if there are four alternatives) that the first response will be incorrect. One thing that Skinner apparently overlooks or takes for granted in his construction of automatic learning devices is the matter of motivation. One is reminded of the old principle "that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." So the success of any automatic learning device depends on whether the pupil wants to learn or not. If he wants to learn then he will do the exercises provided. But if he does not want to learn then the machine will lie unused. Reinforcement depends on prior motivation and the two are linked together. One might as well ask, why does a child want to do an exercise correctly. This may be answered in two different ways. We may answer it with a forward look and say that the child wants to learn arithmetic or geography, or that he wants to pass to get a good mark, to be promoted at the end of the year or to go on to high school. Or we may answer it with a backward look and say that to have done one example right in the past has received a word of approval or of praise or a smile from his tcachcr and that such an expression makes the child feel secure with her and it is this that he craves above all else. Someone may ask "Is not getting an answer right an inherent satisfaction?" Are you not forgetting that there is an inexorable rightness and wrongness of facts or information that serves as a primary reinforcement ? The psychologist believes that this check or correctness with facts from the outside world is a secondary process, for the most part coming after the child's learning has been guided by "A Machine for Automatic Teaching of Drill Material," School and Society, Vol. 25, pp. 549-552, 1927. "A Third and Fourth Contribution toward the 'Industrial Revolution' in Education," School and Society, Vol. 36, pp. 668-672, 1932. "Development and Appraisal of Devices Providing Immediate Automatic Scoring of Objective Tests and Concomitant Self-Instruction," Journal of Psychology, Vol. 29, pp. 417-447, 1950.

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persons. We fervently hope that as a result of education every individual acquires an inner and personal standard of accuracy and correctness and that he will become less dependent on a teacher to guide his responses. But this is an end state of affairs and at the beginning children are dependent on parents and teachers to guide them in their learning. However, these critics of so-called extrinsic learning through praise have an important point that must not be overlooked. The teacher reinforces learning not only by showing her approval of the correct response but by pointing out the relationships of the correct response with other experiences. It is not enough to say correct when five is the response to two plus three. The child should have the experience of observing the answer by counting two objects and adding to that number three objects. He should have the visual experience of combining two and three. This in addition to getting the immediate answer helps him to learn through experiencing in many contexts what addition means. It is in this way that the child is helped to tie and regulate his responses to the inexorability of the world in which he lives. What about negative reinforcement? What place does it have in education ? By negative reinforcement is meant some stimulus which results in withdrawing behavior and later secondarily avoidance behavior. Examples of negative reinforcement are the electric shock or the hot object. If one is given an electric shock on the hand the immediate and usually vigorous response is the withdrawal of the hand. On a subsequent occasion one even avoids the situation or surroundings in which one is shocked. In education an illustration of negative reinforcement is saying "wrong" following a response. The natural sequence to this is not to make that response again. This depends of course on having given attention to the situation or stimulus which called forth the response and recognizing and remembering it on a subsequent occasion. The psychologist believes that negative reinforcement is not a very important guide to learning. Negative reinforcement tells one what not to do, not what to do. If a child is told that his answer is wrong he still is faced with the problem of discovering the steps that lead to the right answer. But if he is told that his answer is correct he can say "that is it, if I do this again I can get the right answer again." Positive reinforce-

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ment serves as a guide to learning but negative reinforcement simply eliminates one of the false alternatives. The only time that negative reinforcement can serve as a helpful guide to learning is when there are only two alternatives, "if this answer is wrong then the other one is right." If chewing gum is not acceptable to my teacher, then I must not chew gum in her class. Punishment is an important variety of negative reinforcement. There is no doubt but that punishment has its place, particularly in the control of behavior. The effect of punishment is to stop a person from doing what he is doing or has done, but learning is not the stopping of activity but its direction, and learning requires the guidance and direction of positive reinforcement. This discussion of the reinforcement of learning in the elementary schools is incomplete because it has dealt only with those learnings where the answer is known in advance. What about those learnings where there is no right answer, where the response is the outward expression of inner feelings, as in art, music, dance, creative writing and speaking? How does reinforcement apply to these learnings? We speak of creative expression, but even the most highly creative act is subject to social reinforcement. I understand that as a result of Cliburn's having received the Tschaikowsky award for his piano playing in Russia and his subsequent acclaim in this country, there has been a tremendous increase in interest in classical music among adolescents. Classical music has been here all the time but it required this kind of reinforcement to make it "popular". A teacher puts a child's drawing on the wall for display. The other children in the class make their drawings like it in the use of color, line, space and in subject matter. Is the current vogue for abstract and impressionistic paintings simply the outward expression of inner feelings? I doubt if these forms of paintings would persist if they were not hung in a gallery or if they did not bring high prices in the auctions. True they must "satisfy" in some way those who paint them and those who look at them, and buy them, but even the satisfactions of the observers are subject to reinforcement. Of course creative expression should be free and should not follow rigid stereotypes. Nevertheless the teacher has power to direct creative expression so that it is more convincing, more powerful, more intelligible and more pleasing.

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We hear a great deal today about mass media of instruction through the use of audio-visual devices. Those who are chaperoning these instrumental devices sometimes forget how that learning takes place not only by what is shown to children but by the responses that children make, for learning is responding. I am afraid that frequently the proponents of these newer forms of instruction using mass media forget that learning takes place not only when the child is responding but also when his correct or acceptable responses are reinforced. In short, the teacher is still necessary in education and not just as a lecturer but also as a reinforcer of the responses that are to be learned.

Social Studies Skills Jor DOROTHY

McCLURE

Children

FRASER*

S

YSTEMATIC ATTENTION TO t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f s o c i a l s t u d i e s skills is

relatively new in our elementary schools, if a long view is taken of elementary education in the United States. When we discarded memorization of content as an acceptable procedure and sought to have children learn through experience and understanding, it was inevitable that we should become concerned with the teaching of skills. But concern for skill development was only the beginning. Before a systematic program of skill instruction could be worked out, it was necessary to define the skills that were needed and discover ways of helping children become proficient in their use. Efforts to develop a functional program of skill instruction have gone hand in hand with a better understanding of the teaching-learning process. We still have much to discover about how people learn, but psychologists have provided us with considerable evidence about conditions and procedures that facilitate learning. From this evidence we can derive a number of principles on which to base a program of skill development. By defining the skills we need to teach and * Associate Professor of Education, The City College of New York City.

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considering the principles suggested by psychological research, we can plan classroom procedures that will help children grow in their use of social studies skills.

Social Studies Skills

Defined

The skills for which the social studies field must assume a m a j o r share of responsibility are the skills involved in problem-solving or critical thinking, as these processes are applied in the social studies. More specifically, they are the skills the child must use in order to develop social studies concepts and understandings. They are the skills that are needed to carry out the following activities: getting information; evaluating information; organizing information; using the steps of the problem-solving process; developing understanding of time and chronology; interpreting m a p s and globes; interpreting pictures, charts, and graphs; working in groups; reading social studies materials; listening and observing in social studies; speaking and writing in social studies. These skill areas are not mutually exclusive. The skills needed to gather information, for example, overlap with those needed for reading social studies materials, for interpreting maps and globes, for listening and observing efficiently, and for interpreting pictures, charts, and graphs. Other efforts to categorize social studies skills have resulted in somewhat different classifications, but the same overlapping is present in these lists. The inter-relatedness of the skill areas makes such overlapping inevitable, but does not reduce the utility of a reasonable classification. Only by considering the social studies skills in terms of specific categories can we develop systematic plans for teaching them. The social studies field does not carry sole responsibility for the teaching of most of the skills listed above. Language arts instruction, for example, must include attention to the skills of gathering, organizing, and evaluating information. Especially must language arts instruction be concerned with the skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing, in whatever curricular field these skills are being applied at a given moment. Science instruction must include attention to the scientific method, which has much in c o m m o n with critical thinking as it is applied in the social studies. But the social studies field does

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have a special responsibility for the application of all these skills in the study of social content. For two of the skill areas, the social studies must accept unique responsibility; these are the skills involved in understanding time and chronology, and the geographic skills. Basic Principles for a Program of Skill

Development1

Findings in the fields of psychology of learning and curriculum planning suggest five principles that must be taken into account in developing an effective program for teaching skills. A definite plan for teaching skills is needed. For effective teaching and learning of skills, both teacher and students must focus their attention on the development of proficiency in the use of skills. If the skills are treated as an incidental part of the social studies program, to be learned as a by-product, pupils may or may not gain control of them. Haphazard attention to skills is not likely to cause a pupil to understand their importance, or give adequate practice in their application. Thus skill development must be a planned part of the social studies if it is to be done effectively. However, the effective plan is not one which attempts to teach skills in isolation. Skills should be taught through a functional approach. While proficiency in use of skills is a major outcome of learning, the skill is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The skill of reading a map, for example, is a means of achieving a purpose—finding the best route for a trip, or getting information about the geography of a particular region. If a skill is taught in an isolated, academic fashion, the pupil may never understand how he can use it in work situations. Even if he understands the skill intellectually, he still may not form habits and attitudes that will lead him to use the skill if his only experience with it has been in non-functional situations. The element of motivation is involved, also. Pupils will learn to use a skill more effectively if they see a reason and have a desire to use it. A positive motivation for learning skills can be created by presenting them in real situations. The level of skill instruction must be appropriate to the maturity of the learner. The aspects of skills that are presented must be those which 1

Helen McCracken Carpenter, ed. Skills in the Social Studies, Twenty-Fourth Yearbook, National Council for the Social Studies, ch. 1, Washington, D . C : The Council, 1953. See for fuller discussion of underlying principles.

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the learner can, with his background of experience, understand and be interested in. If the uses of the skill that are proposed assume a higher level of pupil understanding than actually exists, the activities will have little meaning for him. His effort at an assignment that is too difficult is likely to be confused and perhaps result in failure. Or the pupil may, if he is imitative and obedient, go through correct motions and give "right" answers without growing in his command of the skill that is involved. In short, the student learns from classroom activities only when they are comprehensible to him. He must be able to relate the new idea, fact, or activity to understandings he already commands. Thus in teaching map-reading skills, each new activity must be related to the child's accumulating background of information and experience. On the other hand, if the learning experience is pitched at too juvenile a level for the students, it may give them repetitive practice but will not help them grow. Too many such activities will be deadly dull. Skills are learned by using them repeatedly in different situations, and at increasingly mature levels of application. No skill or set of skills is "learned" by a student in one experience, no matter how vital and vivid that experience may be. There must be practice, repetition, for permanent learning to take place. But mere repetition does not guarantee learning. It must be repeated use of the skill in situations that have meaning to the student, and in which improving in the skill is a recognized aim. It must be repeated use, accompanied each time by diagnosis of problems and evaluation of progress in the use of the skill. In other words, it must be practice with insight. The practice must take place in many different situations, each one as realistic as possible. Psychological research indicates that the transfer value of learning will be increased if certain circumstances exist: if the situation in which the learning first takes place is realistic; if there is conscious attention by the learner to the possibility of using it in other situations; and if the learner immediately makes many and varied applications of the learning. To be effective, the repeated use of a skill must involve application of the skill at an increasingly mature level as the student himself matures. Thus the kind of readiness experiences that we can provide for primary children with respect to time and chronology would have little value for sixth grade pupils. If these ideas about the development of skills are accepted, we have

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to discard the old concept of absolute mastery of skills. No skill or set of skills is "mastered" by a student in one year, nor even in one division of our school system. In fact, one may question whether the term mastery is ever appropriate; perhaps "control" of a skill area is a more accurate way of putting it. Mastery implies a finality that cannot be held to exist until all the conceivable situations in which a skill might be used have arisen and the student's "mastery" of the skill has been tested in them all. At any rate, we must recognize that a student's learning of skills is a continuing process, with re-teaching and expanded application of a given skill throughout his school career. Another aspect of the old "mastery" concept must be discarded— the notion that all children can and should be made to grasp a given skill by the end of a particular school grade. Individual differences in maturation rate, of experiental background, and of potential ability enter into the situation. We may assure ourselves that all children in grade six have been exposed to particular library skills, or to the use of the encyclopedia, but we know that each child will carry away a somewhat different learning about those skills. Evaluation of a program for skill instruction should be in terms of pupil behavior. Does the sixth grade pupil use more than one source in preparing a report, or does he rely on an encyclopedia article alone ? Does he turn to the calendar to locate important dates, and can he use it efficiently ? Does he habitually try to get the meaning of a new social studies term from context, and go to the dictionary if necessary? The pupil's habitual performance in use of skills must be evaluated in order to judge the effectiveness of skill instruction. These five principles call for a comprehensive, co-ordinated plan for instruction in social studies skills. There must be both horizontal and vertical articulation of learning experiences in such a plan. The third grade pupil must be encouraged to apply the social studies skills, at his level of maturity, whenever the opportunity arises in any curriculum area. His study of time vocabulary and his understanding of sequence may be applied in his study of arithmetic, and vice versa. Vertical articulation, from one grade to the next, demands planning among the teachers in an elementary school. It also calls for the use of diagnostic measures with each group of pupils, to determine how fully they have integrated earlier skill experiences into their own learnings.

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A Plan for Skill Instruction in Elementary Social Studies A first step in planning a program of skill development is to determine the areas of skills in which instruction will be given. A next step is to identify levels of understanding and use of each skill that represent reasonable goals for a particular stage of maturity. Within the past decade, this step has received considerable attention from social studies specialists, and from numerous elementary curriculum committees in various parts of the country. The results are summarized in the chart which follows. It is organized according to the list of social studies skills given above, and suggests levels of achievement to which instruction may be pitched appropriately in the primary and intermediate grades. It can be used as a guide in grade placement of skill activities. Like any plan for grade placement, however, the chart must be used flexibly and adapted to particular groups of children and particular school situations. It presents a general norm, not a scheme to be applied rigidly. SOCIAL STUDIES

SKILLS IN THE ELEMENTARY

PRIMARY GRADES ( 1 - 3 )

I. Getting

GRADES*

INTERMEDIATE GRADES ( 4 - 6 )

Information:

From Books: The child begins to learn: -to hold the book correctly -to take proper care of the book -to use title to learn what the book is about -to use table of contents to locate a particular part or topic in the book -to use page numbers to locate a particular page

The child increases skill in: -using title of book as a guide to contents -using table of contents -using page numbers The child begins to learn to: -use title page, including publication date -use glossary, appendices, lists of maps, etc. -distinguish between story books and factual books, and choose a book appropriate for his purpose

'In compiling this chart, the following sources have been utilized: Baltimore (Maryland) Public Schools, Guide to Elementary Education, 1955. Buffalo (New York) Public Schools, Social Studies Curriculum Guide, K-6 (Tentative), 1956. Minneapolis (Minnesota) Public Schools, Social Studies, K-7, 1957. National Council for the Social Studies, Twenty-Fourth Yearbook, Skills in Social Studies, 1953.

Elementary Education PRIMARY GRADES

I. Getting Information (com.) From Encyclopedias and other reference books: The child begins to: -understand that there are special kinds of reference books

From the Dictionary: The child begins to: -understand the purpose of using a dictionary, and that it is arranged alphabetically -understand that a word may have more than one meaning -alphabetize a list of words according to the first letter of each word -use a picture dictionary

From the Library: The child begins to: -understand the purpose of the school and/or public library, and use its/their resources -understand how the librarian can help him find information -locate the books for his age group -use a library card

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The child begins to: -be familiar with children's encyclopaedias -locate information in any encyclopaedia by using key words, the letters on each volume, the index, and the cross references -be familiar with reference works such as the World Almanac

The child begins to: -use a conventional but simplified dictionary alphabetize a list of words according to the first three letters of each word -use guide words on each page -choose the appropriate meaning of the word for the context in which he is using it -get correct pronunciation of word from diacritical markings, respellings, etc. -understand syllabication

The child begins to: -use the card catalogue to learn what books about his topic are available -use call numbers to locate nonfiction books -use last name of author to locate books of fiction -locate reference books in the library

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1. Getting Information (cont.) From Newspapers, Magazines, and Pamphlets: The child begins to: -find pictures and information related to class activities -recognize these materials as sources of information about many topics, especially current topics

From Field Trips and Interviews: The child begins to: -identify the purposes of the field trip or interview -plan procedures, rules of behavior, questions to be asked, things to look for -record and summarize, on return, pertinent information gained -evaluate the trip or interview in terms of purposes and of effectiveness of plans -find acceptable ways of expressing thanks to the interviewee or to those who received them on the field trip

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The child begins to: -learn the organization of a newspaper, and how to use the index -learn the nature of the different sections of the newspaper -select important news items -recognize differences in purpose and coverage of different magazines -select, from these sources, material that is pertinent to class activities The child gains deeper experience in: -identifying purposes and planning for the field trip or interview -recording, summarizing, and evaluating the information gained -evaluating the planning and execution of the field trip or interview The child learns to: -take increasingly greater initiative in the actual conduct of the interview or field trip -practice more nearly adult forms of procedure as in opening and concluding the interview, or in expressing appreciation for courtesies extended during the field trip

From audio-visual aids: See: Listening and Observing, and Interpreting Pictures, Charts, and Graphs From Maps and Globes: See: Interpreting Maps and Globes

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INTERMEDIATE G R A D E S

II. Organizing Information: The child begins to: -select, from material heard, viewed, or read, answers to questions -select, from material heard, viewed, or read, the main idea -compose a title for a story or picture -list facts, ideas, or events (as after a field trip) in sequence -classify pictures, ideas, facts, events, under main headings or according to categories -divide a topic into main points -make a simple table o f contents for a booklet, report, or other presentation

T h e child refines and deepens his ability to: -select, from material read, viewed, or heard, facts or ideas pertinent to a question or topic he is investigating -arrange events, facts, ideas, in sequence -select main ideas, and relate supporting facts to each main idea -classify pictures, ideas, etc., under main headings or according to categories -divide a topic into main points The child begins t o : -make simple outlines o f material read, using correct outline form -make a table of contents with sub-headings -take notes, with record of source (author, title, page reference) -make an outline of topics to be investigated, and seek material about each major point, using more than one source -write a summary of main points in material read, heard, or viewed

III. Evaluating

Information:

The child begins to: -compare information about a topic drawn from two or more sources -recognize contradictions and agreements in evidence obtained -examine reasons for contradictions or seeming contradictions Q.Q.A.E.-M

T h e child deepens and refines his ability to -compare information, recognize contradictions -evaluate sources in terms of authority, and recency -distinguish between facts and opinion -draw tentative conclusions

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III. Evaluating Information (cont.) in evidence consider which source of information is more acceptable, and why -distinguish between fact (what can be shown to be true) and opinion (what someone thinks) -come to tentative conclusions based on facts

IV. Developing Problem-Solving Skills: The child begins to: -recognize a problem for study -make a simple statement (or definition) of the problem -recall pertinent, known information about the problem -list questions for further study ("what we need to find out") -plan where and how to look for information about these questions -gather, organize and evaluate information (See I, II, III) -summarize findings and draw conclusions, recognizing the need to change them if new information calls for revision -decide how to use the findings and conclusions

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The child begins to: -consciously examine material for consistency, reasonableness, and freedom from bias -recognize and evaluate propaganda devices -consciously make deductions and generalizations from the evidence he has The child refines and deepens his ability to use the problem-solving process by: -recognizing a problem for study, defining it clearly, setting purposes for the study -summarizing his present information about the problem -identifying areas of the problem in which more information is needed -planning how the group can best carry on its study, including a time schedule as well as plans for organizing the group -locating sources of information and selecting the more useful ones -gathering, organizing and evaluating information (See: I, II, III) -summarizing findings and drawing tentative conclusions -evaluating the study of the problem to see whether the purposes set at the beginning have been met -providing for further study of the problem, if necessary, to achieve purposes

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Education INTERMEDIATE GRADES

PRIMARY GRADES

IV. Developing Problem-Solving

Skills (cont.) The child begins to: -make conscious and systematic application of the steps of the problem-solving process

V. Reading Social Studies

Textual

The child begins to: -understand an increasing number of social studies terms, at first as a part of his listening and oral vocabulary and then as part of his reading vocabulary. Such terms include: -those needed to understand time and spatial relationships (See VI, VII) -those needed to understand relations among individuals and groups, such as words used in describing family relationships (father, grandfather, etc.) those used in describing group relationships and activities within the school (committee, student council, class representative, etc.), those used in describing community agencies (mayor, fireman, police department), and those used to describe economic processes in the community (store, factory, buy, sell, price, profit), -use context clues to interpret a new word -skim a selection to find a particular word, or discover what the selection is about -read to find answers to questions

The child continues: -to expand his social studies vocabulary by learning meanings of new words, through use of the dictionary or such helps as: -use of context clues -recognition and use of root word in a derived word to help interpret the latter (as equator, equatorial) -to refine the skills in reading social studies materials that he has begun to develop in the primary grades The child begins to: -consciously adjust his reading rate and method to his purpose— i.e., skim to get a general impression or locate information, but read slowly to get details or when material is difficult -make use of headings, italics, etc., to locate material quickly -make use of headings, topic sentences, etc., to select main ideas, and differentiate between main and subordinate ideas -consciously evaluate what is read, using approaches suggested in III.

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V. Reading Social Studies Textual Materials: -select, from reading, the statements that are pertinent to the topic he is studying -decide whether or not he has gained, from his reading, an adequate answer to the question he is studying

(cont.)

VI. Developing Understanding of Time and Chronology: Through an understanding of the The child refines and deepens his skill in: time system and the calendar: The child begins to: -telling time by the clock, to -tell time by the clock, by hours, minutes half hours, quarter hours -using names of days of week and -tell time of regular activities in months of year in correct seschool day quence -know and use names of days of -using the calendar to locate imthe week, and their sequence portant dates and determine -find the day and week on the length of time between them calendar -find important dates (holidays, The child begins to: birthdays, other special event -comprehend and use time zones, days) on calendar and daylight saving time -know and use names of months -comprehend the relation be-associate seasons with particular tween rotation of the earth and months day and night -comprehend the relation between the earth's revolution around the sun and the seasons of the year -comprehend the Christian system of chronology, BC and AD Through development of a vocabulary of time and chronology: The child begins to: The child continues to gain: -use such definite expressions of time and chronology as: morning, afternoon, noon, night, day, tomorrow, yesterday, today, tonight, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, next

-a more exact comprehension of the definite expressions of time and chronology which he began to use in the primary grades -a deeper, more flexible comprehension of the indefinite expres-

Elementary Education PRIMARY

VI. Developing

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Understanding

INTERMEDIATE

of Time and Chronology

-use such indefinite expressions of time and chronology as: early, late, old, new, fast, slow, long ago, someday, nowadays, before, after, ahead, behind, between, never, later

GRADES

(cont.)

sions of time and chronology which he began to use in the primary grades The child begins to: -use definite expressions of time and chronology that are more advanced, such as: decade, century, generation, annual, weekly, monthly -use indefinite expressions of time and chronology that are more advanced, such as: beforehand, always, already, presently, recently, past, future, lately, meantime, meanwhile, a while ago, often, moment, period (of time—as colonial period)

Through development of a sense of sequence, order, chronology, and passage of time: The child begins to: -recognize sequence and chronology in the school day (time to come to school, to read, to play, to go home, etc.) -recognize sequence and chronology in the weekly schedule -comprehend sequence and order expressed in first, second, third, etc. -recognize sequence, order, and chronology in passage of seasons -sense the passage of a short period of time (a minute, an hour, a day) -distinguish between past experiences and events yet to come -be able to arrange in order events he has experienced

The child begins to: -figure the length of time between two given dates -gain some comprehension of longer periods of time (as a month, a year, my lifetime, my father's lifetime, my grandfather's lifetime) and to have some sense of the passage of these longer periods of time -understand and make simple time lines -use a few "cluster dates" to establish time relationships among historic events he studies

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VII. Interpreting Maps and Globes:

The child begins to: -understand relative positions and directions (next to, across from, to the left, to the right, in front of) -understand and use the cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) -understand scale (that large objects can be represented by small ones) and legend (that real objects can be represented by pictures or symbols, that certain symbols are usually used to represent streets, cities, mountains, etc.) -be able to relate simple largescale maps to the area they represent (as classroom, school grounds, neighborhood, community) -orient a map, and read directions from it -be able to construct simple largescale maps of known areas -to understand that the globe is a representation of the earth, and that certain symbols are usually used to show land and water areas on the globe -to understand and use correctly such geographic terms as: water, ocean, river, land, hill, valley, mountain, continent, island, hot, cold, dry, rainy

The child continues to refine and deepen the geographic understandings and skills he has begun to develop in the primary grades. The child begins to develop the skills needed to: -locate features shown on the map and globe, as continents, oceans, tropic lines, regions and cities studied -use the equator and/or poles as reference points from which to read comparative distances -use the scale to read distances from the map or globe -use the legend to interpret physical and cultural features shown on the map or globe -read latitude and longitude, and use such readings to find locations, estimate distances (latitude), and estimate time relationships (longitude) -read specialized maps, as population or product maps, -read into a map relationships suggested by the data shown on it (as how factors in a city's location have affected its growth) -compare two or more maps, combine data shown on them, and draw conclusions based on the data (as comparing a highway map and a physical map of a region, to infer the effect of physical features on transportation routes) -choose the best map for his purpose The child begins to understand and

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INTERMEDIATE G R A D E S

VII. Interpreting Maps and Globes (cont.) use correctly more difficult geographic terms, such as: -plateau; lowland; highland; elevation; peninsula; headwaters, mouth, tributaries of a river; gulf; prevailing winds; low, middle, and high latitudes; meridian.

VIII. Interpreting Pictures, Charts and Graphs: The child begins to: -note specifics shown in a picture, and draw conclusions—as, snow, people wearing warm clothing, no leaves on trees suggests cold weather, winter -read simple charts showing development of processes—as tracing a cotton dress from the field, to gin, to mill, to factory, to store, to consumer; or organization of group—as chart of "helpers" in classroom -read simple graphs, bar, pictorial

The child continues to expand and deepen his skill in: -noting significant details shown in pictorial material—as time period or nature of event shown by costumes of people -reading more complicated charts showing process flow, sequence of events (as steps in growth of a pioneer community), basic statistics (as population), or organization (as student council or state government) -reading simple graphs, bar, circle, pictorial and line graphs The child begins to: -make and read simple time lines -make various kinds of graphs for purposes he has determined

VIII. Interpreting Pictures, Charts, and Graphs (continued): The child begins to: -read more complicated bar, line, and circle graphs -make comparisons between two graphs, charts, or pictures showing different but related data -relate and compare information derived from pictures, charts, and graphs with that gained through reading or listening

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IX. Working in Croups:

The child begins to: -understand the need for rules, and acts according to them -take part in planning, accepting group decisions even when different from his own ideas -carry out his part responsibly -accept leadership sometimes; be a follower at other times -identify when special responsibilities should be assigned to one person and, in these situations, what officers are needed -select officers in terms of ability to carry out the duties of the particular office

The child continues to develop the group work skills in which he has made a beginning during his primary grade years In addition, he begins to: -distinguish between work that can be done most efficiently by individuals, and that which calls for group effort -learn and use simple parliamentary procedure in situations where it is needed -understand more fully the importance of courtesy and tact in group discussions, and the forms through which it can be expressed -gain and apply a conscious understanding of the characteristics of a constructive group member, an appointed group leader

X. Listening and Observing in Social Studies Work: The child continues to develop and refine his skills of listening and observation, as: The child begins to: -listening and viewing with a -listen to stories to find answers to purpose questions -holding his attention on a se-listen to and view films for quence of ideas answers to questions -selecting main ideas and sup-listen attentively when others are porting details in material heard speaking in discussion, waiting and viewed his turn to speak -listen attentively and courteously -relating and comparing informato another's oral report, and tion gained through listening and give helpful evaluative comment observing with that gained from on it reading -identify a sequence of ideas in -consciously recognizing that he what he hears and observes (as can gain valuable information

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337 INTERMEDIATE GRADES

X. Listening and Observing in Social Studies Work (cont.) a film), and select those that are through listening and observing, as well as through reading most important -be alert, out of school as well as The child begins consciously to: -evaluate movies, radio proin class, to hear and observe grams, and television programs things that are pertinent to his concerned with social studies social studies work topics XI. Speaking and Writing in Social The child begins to: -apply skills of planning, collecting, evaluating and organizing information in his written and oral reports -apply, in his social studies work, his developing skill in printing and writing, spelling, and punctuating, using these skills at the highest level of which he is capable at the given time -learn how to write a letter of invitation (to apotential speaker), or request (for a field trip, etc.), of thanks (to someone who has helped the class in its study) -learn how to keep simple "minutes" of a meeting -speak clearly and with poise, when giving an oral report -take part in an organized discussion, contributing relevant ideas and facts

udies Work: The child continues to apply his developing skill in: -planning, collecting, evaluating and organizing information in written and oral reports -the mechanics of writing, and correct oral expression The child increasingly: -uses more adult forms to present written and oral reports, as in planning for an interesting introduction and an appropriate conclusion, using care in paragraphing, sequence, etc. -puts material into his own words except where he indicates that he is quoting -uses illustrative material to make his reports more interesting and fuller -speaks from notes, rather than reading an oral report -keeps accurate minutes of a meeting -writes letters that are correct in usage and form -talks to the point, in discussion, avoiding repetitious or irrelevant comments

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Examination o f the chart will show that simpler, more concrete aspects of the skills are suggested for teaching in the primary grades. T o a considerable extent the activities that are implied are those which will develop readiness for more formal instruction in skills at the intermediate grade level. Yet first steps will have been taken, and a basis laid for understanding by intermediate grade pupils of more mature aspects of the skills. The proposed level of treatment of skills in the intermediate grades represents a definite progression toward the more complex and abstract, in line with the greater maturity of pupils. Study of the chart will also reveal that the various skills suggested for treatment at the primary and intermediate levels can be taught through social studies content that is usually presented in grades 1-6. It is important that this be so, if the skills are to be an integral part of social studies instruction. A third step in planning a program of skill development is to select or invent activities and learning experiences that will help children gain the desired levels in the use of skills. The foregoing chart is phrased to imply kinds o f experiences that can be used to develop the various skill areas. It may be helpful, however, to spell out more specifically examples of activities that can be used for a particular cluster of skills. "Interpreting maps and globes" has been selected for this treatment, since it is a skill area for which the social studies has unique responsibility. Limitations of time prevent a comprehensive listing of activities to cover all aspects of the area, but a sampling will be presented. In the primary grades activities such as the following can be used to develop basic vocabulary and readiness for interpreting maps and globes. The first group will help to develop understanding of relative direction and the cardinal directions. Teach "right" and " l e f t , " using many games and exercises in which children follow a leader's spoken instructions to "turn to the left," "point to the right," "walk to the right," make a toy airplane "fly to the left," and so on. Teach such terms of relative position as "next t o , " "in front of," and "behind," through games and exercises such as those suggested in number 1. Place a placard containing the word " f r o n t " at the front o f the room, and another, " b a c k " at the back of the room. Call attention to them at appropriate times, as helps in identifying the front and

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back of the room. Use action songs containing such terms, with the children acting out the words of the song. When children seem ready, usually early in the third grade, teach the cardinal directions. On the playground, on a sunny day, ask children to stand so that their shadows are directly in front of them. Tell them that they are facing north. Ask them to point to the left (west), then to the right (east), and identify west and east. Ask the children to turn, face in the opposite direction—south. Develop games and exercises to give children practice in identifying the cardinal directions in relation one to the other, and in orienting themselves by the sun. Continue with a variety of such exercises until responses become almost automatic. When children have been introduced to the cardinal directions in the above manner, label the four walls of the classroom with the correct direction, North, South, East, and West. Refer to these labels as appropriate, encouraging children to use them as helps in pointing out the direction of outstanding buildings, parks, or physical features in the community, or in pointing in the direction of nearby towns that the children have visited. Use singing games (action songs) and exercises calling for the children to turn, walk, etc., in particular directions. Ask children to observe the direction from which the sun rises in the morning, and in which it sets in the evening. In games and exercises, alternate such identification of directions as "face in the direction of the rising s u n " with the cardinal directions. Introduce the words " u p " and " d o w n " in the early primary grades, using games, labels, and other techniques suggested above. As children begin to learn terms of relative position and then the cardinal directions, emphasize that " u p " is away from the ground, and " d o w n " is toward the center of the earth. Be alert to avoid relating " u p " to " N o r t h " and " d o w n " to " S o u t h . " Primary grade children can be introduced to the concepts of scale and legend, and to simple maps, through activities such as these: As kindergartners and first graders become acquainted with their classroom, school, playground, and neighbourhood, encourage them to build a school with blocks, draw a "picture" of the classroom, and so on. Later, if there is occasion to rearrange the classroom or a part of it for a special project, the children can use blocks or draw plans to

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show suggested arrangements of the furniture. When parents are expected to come to school, children may make and take home "picture plans" of their classroom, or of the school building, or the part of the school in which their room is located. Thus the idea that such plans can serve to guide people and show arrangements is introduced. As primary grade children begin to explore their neighbourhood through field trips, encourage them to make simple diagrams representing the buildings, streets, and so on in the area to be covered in a field trip. Trace the route followed by the class, when they have returned to the classroom. Suggest to older primary grade children that they make three-dimensional maps of the school grounds or the neighbourhood, using large sheets of paper laid on the classroom floor. Streets may be marked in with crayon. Cardboard boxes or milk cartons, appropriately decorated, may be pasted to the paper to represent houses and other buildings. Larger boxes can be used for the larger buildings, etc. Toy automobiles, trucks, and small dolls representing people may be placed in appropriate locations, and used in dramatic play involving the "map." As children study units on the farm, the grocery store, the fire station, and so on, provide opportunities for them to study and make diagrams in which pictures are used as symbols. Such experiences provide readiness for later introduction of conventional map symbols. Discuss with primary children and, if possible, take them to visit examples of land forms which they have seen in the community—a hill, a river, and a valley. Encourage them to observe and tell about cultural features, such as bridges, highways, railroad trucks, and parks, and begin to use symbols to represent them on the "maps" made by children at their desks, or on the floor of the classroom. Show many pictures of hills, rivers, and other land forms that have been observed, to help the child begin to build adequate concepts and a store of visual images of these land forms. He should learn that not all hills look exactly like the hill he has climbed. When cardinal directions have been introduced, teach children to orient their floor maps and write the directions on the four sides of the map. Make the transition to wall maps by hanging one of the children's floor or desk maps, with directions marked on the margins, on the north wall of the room. Discuss the reasons for hanging a map on the

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wall (so everyone can see it easily), and the m e a n i n g of N o r t h and South on a wall m a p . Occasionally remove a wall m a p f r o m its hanging position, have the children place it in correct orientation on the floor, and then re-hang it. Experiences with the globe should be informal and spontaneous in the primary grades. Have a globe in the classroom for children to examine. Explain that it is the shape of o u r earth. T a k e advantage of questions and expressions of interest to point out the continents a n d oceans, without pressing f o r m a l instruction. R a t h e r , let children gain a feeling of acquaintance with it, and understand that it can be used to locate far-away places. W h e n a news item o r a story involving a distant place is discussed or read, show the children where the place is located on the globe. If one of the children has a relative living in a distant part of the United States or in a n o t h e r country, show the children the location on the globe. In the intermediate grades, f o r m a l instruction in m a p skills can be carried o n t h r o u g h procedures which involve a combination of activity, first hand experience, and more indirect, abstract experiences. Continued attention to the u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d use of directions can be given t h r o u g h procedures such as these: Continue exercises in orienting maps and reading directions from wall maps and desk maps, whenever such exercises fit naturally into the classwork. After reviewing and, if necessary, reteaching the cardinal directions, teach the intermediate directions—northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest. Help children learn them thoroughly, as evidenced by ability to use them, through games and exercises calling for their use. When the intermediate directions have been introduced, teach the use of the compass to check directions. Through the intermediate grades, provide opportunities in the classroom, on the playground, and on field trips, to practice the use of the compass. C o n t i n u e w o r k with simple a n d then m o r e conventional m a p s . Use a p p r o a c h e s that help the child read into the m a p the landscape features and other d a t a t h a t are presented there, t h r o u g h exercises such as these: If possible, obtain an aerial photograph of an area for which there

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are also ground photographs and a flat map. (Such sets are commercially available, and are increasingly found in social studies textbooks for the intermediate grades.) Have the children study and discuss the photographs. If some of them have taken a trip in an airplane, have them describe how the ground looked from the plane. Explain how the aerial photograph was taken from the plane. Then study the map alongside the photographs, discussing how the map shows the features they can see in the photographs. Continue to show and discuss pictures of different mountains, plains, deserts, and so on as each land form or type of landscape is studied. This will help the child develop a variety of visual images for each type of land form or landscape, so that he can select the appropriate image for a region he is reading about or seeing represented on a map. Continue to have children observe land forms at first hand in the community, and compare them with those about which they are studying. Use pictures, sand table displays, and some of the new rubber or plastic relief maps to teach the concept of elevation. Reinforce classroom exercises and explanations by field trips to points of high and low elevation in the community. If possible, observe the fact that rivers and streams flow from higher to lower ground (or elevations), or demonstrate this fact in a classroom "experiment". When an adequate basis of understanding about elevation has been laid, let children make relief maps of papier mache, sawdust mache, salt and flour, or powdered asbestos. Tie these exercises into the countries or topics (as pioneers moving west in the United States) that the class is studying at the time. 1 Ask children to study a physical m a p of a region, and on an outline m a p of the same region, put arrows on each m a j o r river to show the direction of flow. Repeat such exercises, with variations, as different regions of the United States and the world are studied. Let children trace or make free-hand m a p s to illustrate such land forms and concepts as peninsula, island, rugged coastline. Children can profit enormously from the sensory experiences involved in such map-making, if it is done with a specific purpose and is combined with the use of prepared outline maps and other flat maps. 1 Recipes and instructions for making relief maps are given in the following references: John U . Michaelis, Social Studies for Children in a Democracy, pp. 310-313, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1956, second edition. Ralph C. Preston, Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Schools, pp. 288-295, N e w York: Rinehart and Company, 1958, revised edition.

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Let older intermediate children use prepared outline maps to present data drawn from two or more specialized maps, to show relationships between physical and cultural features. M a k e extensive use of road maps, during the intermediate grade study of the United States. D e v e l o p exercises (imaginary trips, etc.) that require children to practice orienting the map, reading distances and directions from it, and using the m a p index. Use silhouettes of continents, countries, and states in identification games and exercises, to help children develop generalized m a p images of these land masses and political units. Encourage the collection and use of maps of different types, stressing the fact that each tells a particular story. Arrange a map file with such headings as physical, political, population, transportation, products, and resources. Stress the importance of choosing the right map for the purpose at hand. Plan student reports that will involve the use of different types of maps, along with reading material. Continue instruction in the use of the globe, on a more systematic basis than in the primary grades. M a n y experiences in consulting and handling the globe will help children gain a feeling of familiarity with it and encourage them to use it in later years. Activities such as these will be helpful: Have children in the early intermediate years make " g l o b e s " of clay, mark on them the poles, the equator, and make rough outlines of the continents. Let them " c u t " their clay globes into hemispheres, some into northern and southern hemispheres, others into eastern and western hemispheres. Use a globe and lighted flashlight in a darkened room to demonstrate the rotation and revolution of the earth. Discuss day and night, and the seasons, in connection with this demonstration. Let students repeat the demonstration after a period of time, if there seems to be a need for review and reteaching when tropic lines are discussed. Demonstrate the usefulness o f the m a p grid by placing a chalk mark on a large, plain ball, and asking children to tell where the mark is placed. W h e n their efforts have been unsuccessful, draw a grid on the ball, number the lines, and repeat the original question. This will help children understand that the m a p grid is an invention o f man for establishing locations, and measuring distances and time. When latitude and longitude have been presented, give children

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many and varied exercises in using latitude lines and meridians to locate places, and estimate distances. The confusion many adults exhibit concerning latitude and longitude may reflect the lack of such practice at a time when they did understand the concepts, rather than prove that the concepts were never taught to them. These sample procedures for teaching the geographic skills illustrate how the basic principles of skill development can be applied. The procedures suggest a definite plan on the part of the teacher, with continued review, reteaching, and application of skills. They progress from short, easy games and exercises dealing with simple concepts and skills in the primary grades to relatively complex activities dealing with the more abstract concepts and skills to be taught to older children. The procedures involve activities that children of the age for which they are intended can carry out with interest and success. Many of the procedures involve out-of-school observation and application, as well as classroom uses. The sequence of procedures calls for repeated practice of specific skills and a variety of uses of them, to provide for more permanent learning and a higher degree of transfer. Finally, procedures such as those suggested enable the teacher to evaluate children's growth in control of the geographic skills by observing their use of the skills. This discussion has emphasized the teaching of social studies skills. But as we plan for skill development, we must always remember that the child's growth in understanding social studies concepts and in developing social values or attitudes is just as important as his grasp of skills. Skills, concepts, and values—each is a fundamental component of social studies education for democratic citizenship. As we focus on one of these components, we must not neglect the others— and we will not if we strive to maintain a comprehensive plan for the social studies program.

Development

oj

in RALPH

Self-Discipline

Children H. O J E M A N N *

S

"discipline" and hence "self-discipline" has many meanings (Webster lists at least eight) it will be necessary to specify how we are using the term "self-discipline" in this discussion. Perhaps the most frequent connotation associated with it is the idea of control or obedience to some principle or standard. But this statement begs the question of what principle or standard. It appears that we can develop a more precise and meaningful definition if we start with some basic considerations. When we think of how a person may react to a given situation we can classify his reaction on a continuum varying f r o m "reacts in a way that helps him and those affected by his behavior to maintain and enhance selfrespect, security, and similar personality d e m a n d s " on the one hand to "reacts in a way that makes it difficult for himself and those affected to meet these personality d e m a n d s " on the other. A person may solve daily situations in such ways as the following, all of which, as you will see, fall on this c o n t i n u u m : INCE THE WORD

* Professor,

Slate University

of Iowa.

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H e can do the first thing that comes to his mind and not stop to think at all. This might not be what many people would call " m a k i n g a decision." A s a second way, he can react in terms of what would be the easiest for h i m and what would be the most f u n right now. In other words, he could think only of himself a n d what he would like at this m o m e n t . H e can consider himself and the others plus what he would like to d o at this time. H e would not think ahead to see what the effect would be later on but only what he would like now. In this way of deciding, he is thinking of the other people as well as himself, B U T he is thinking only of this m o m e n t . H e can think not only of the m o m e n t a n d what he would like n o w but he can also think ahead to feel what some of the results might be later. O n e d e f i n i t i o n of self-discipline a n d t h e o n e t h a t a p p e a r s m o s t u s e f u l f o r this p a p e r r e a d s t h u s : s o l v i n g t h e daily s i t u a t i o n s in w a y s t h a t h e l p to m a i n t a i n a n d e n h a n c e t h e self-respect, s e c u r i t y a n d o t h e r p e r s o n a l i t y d e m a n d s of t h o s e p e r s o n s i n c l u d i n g t h e i n d i v i d u a l h i m s e l f a f f e c t e d b y the b e h a v i o r a n d d o i n g this w i t h o u t b e i n g told to d o so o r f o r c e d t o d o so b y s o m e o n e o t h e r t h a n t h e i n d i v i d u a l h i m s e l f . I n s h o r t t h e self-disciplined i n d i v i d u a l , as we a r e u s i n g t h e t e r m in this p a p e r , a c t s c o n s t r u c t i v e l y w i t h o u t h a v i n g s o m e o n e w a t c h h i m t h a t he d o e s so. O u r q u e s t i o n is, h o w d o e s t h i s f o r m o f b e h a v i o r d e v e l o p ? O u r p r e s e n t k n o w l e d g e suggests t h r e e r e q u i r e m e n t s : F i r s t , t h e child m u s t h a v e a c h i e v e d a m e a s u r e of success in m e e t i n g his o w n p e r s o n a l i t y d e m a n d s . H i s o w n sense of e m o t i o n a l security, self-respect a n d p e r s o n a l w o r t h m u s t e x p e r i e n c e c o n t i n u e d g r o w t h . I n v e s t i g a t o r s s u c h as Lewis 1 r e f e r t o t h e s e feelings as " e g o - d e m a n d s . " T h e r e a r e t w o types of m e t h o d s b y w h i c h t h e child m a y m a i n t a i n a n d e n h a n c e his feeling of s e c u r i t y a n d p e r s o n a l w o r t h . H e m a y live in a n e n v i r o n m e n t in w h i c h his p a r e n t s , t e a c h e r s a n d o t h e r a d u l t s r e s p e c t h i m , try t o u n d e r s t a n d h i m , h e l p h i m find c o n s t r u c t i v e w a y s f o r d e v e l o p i n g p e r s o n a l significance. S t u d i e s of l e a d e r - c h i l d r e l a t i o n ships 2 h a v e p r o v i d e d d a t a i n d i c a t i n g t h a t u n d e r a n " a u t o c r a t i c " t e a c h e r , t h e r e is f o r c h i l d r e n in A m e r i c a n c u l t u r e a h i g h p r o b a b i l i t y o f 1 Helen B. Lewis, "The Role of the Ego in Cooperative Work," Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 34, pp. 113-126, 1944. 2 K. Lewin, R. Lippitt, and R. White, "Patterns of Aggressive Behaviour in Experimentally created 'Social Climates'," Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 10, pp. 271-299, 213-214, 285-286, 389, 1939.

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difficulty in finding satisfying work and play with others. In environments in which there is an attempt on the part of the teacher or leader to understand the children 1 with whom he works, there is evidence of less conflict and a more favorable attitude toward the work. However, and in a sense, fortunately, in addition to having parents, teachers and other adults make the provisions for trying to understand and help the child, the child himself can be taught to make a beginning in understanding the forces that operate in his social environment. He can learn about some of the factors that may have operated to produce a teacher, a parent, or a community that does not measure up to his ideal. This is not by way of excusing arbitrary autocratic, non-understanding behavior on the part of adults but when by a combination of circumstances, it does occur the child need not have to face it without some insight and appreciation of how it came about and what it means. Knowing something about how the inconsistent behavior he meets comes about helps him to deal with it. How an understanding of human behavior may help a child was rather dramatically illustrated in a study by Morgan. 2 The purpose of this study was to see what effect some education in understanding the forces that operate in the development of human behavior would have on a group of high school graduates. Morgan devised a learning program in human behavior and used pre- and post-measures to determine its effects. She was able to show significant growth for the group as a whole. Rather than reproduce the group results here it may be more helpful to examine the effects on one of the students in the class. It happened that one of the boys in the group had had so much difficulty at home that at the start of the program he had about decided to run away from home. In the group discussions, however, he learned the importance of examining how the social situations one meets come about and he proceeded to apply the methods he learned to his home situation. When he did so he soon learned that his father had owned a good business at one time but had lost it in the depression and had never recovered from this difficulty. He saw his father with whom he 1 Ralph H. Ojemann, Francis R. Wilkinson, "The Effect on Pupil Growth of an Increase in Teacher's Understanding of Pupil Behaviour," Journal of Experimental Education, Vol. VIII, No. 2, pp. 143-147, December, 1939. 2 Mildred I. Morgan and Ralph H. Ojemann, "The Effect of a Learning Program Designed to Assist Youth in an Understanding of Behaviour and Its Development," Child Development, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 181-194, September, 1942.

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had had so many fights more and more as a person in trouble and less as an antagonist. In the interview at the close of the program he said: The thing that did the most for me in this group was seeing my father's failure in business and his starting to drink was all part of a larger social and economic problem. Why, Mrs. Μ . . ., as I thought it through, I'm sure he began drinking because he couldn't stand to face the failure. Of course, it just made matters worse when we lost what little money we had left. Always, before, though, I had blamed him alone and never once thought of the situation... Understanding how it might have happened took all of the bitterness away. The family is doing better all around, now . . . Thus there are two types of methods by which a child can achieve his personal adjustment. He may be in an environment that respects him or he may acquire some appreciation of the forces that block him and thus be able to deal with them more effectively. It would appear that we could make use o f both methods. Thus, one essential for the development of self-discipline is to have an environment in which there are parents, teachers, and adults who understand and use this understanding in their relations with children and an opportunity for the child to acquire some insight into the forces that operate in the daily social situations. In addition to this base in personal adjustment, the child needs the ability to apply methods for understanding the causes of human behavior to the daily social situations he meets. This requirement for the growth of self-discipline is essentially an extension of the appreciation of the forces operating in the human behavior mentioned above to all the social situations with which one has to deal. I f a child suffers a defeat, if he finds his work hard or distasteful, if he is discriminated against by his companions, instead of striking out blindly, showing non-co-operation, or withdrawing to himself it would be helpful if he could first examine the defeat, the distaste or the discriminating behavior to get some idea of how it came about and what it means. He has to have a chance to learn this. This is necessary before he can deal logically with social situations. The example from the Morgan study given above illustrates this. Finally, the child needs a chance to learn to think in terms of several alternative ways of meeting a situation and to examine the various alternatives in terms o f their consequences on others and on himself.

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Considering alternative ways of meeting a situation and the probable consequences of each provides the data that he needs for determining how he is to react to a situation. If he is taught to consider the probable consequences both on others and on himself and both immediate and long term consequences, he will soon realize that some methods will help him grow in self respect and personal worth. Others will not. If for each situation there are available alternatives that will help him maintain and enhance his feeling of amounting to something and doing something worthwhile, he will prefer these as the consequences become more real to him. It is to be noted, however, that for each situation there must be some way of working it out that will help the child to grow in security and self-respect and such methods must not be beyond the child's ability to learn to use them. If there is no such alternative, the child is in an impossible situation and we cannot expect to develop selfdiscipline either in the child or in any of us if we are forced to live in an impossible situation. If the child cannot "figure out" what he can do in a situation and still maintain his self-respect and feeling of worth, he should have available someone to whom he can go. This may be a teacher who will listen and who will keep the child's confidence, a parent who will do likewise, a trusted friend of all three. But if there are no such teachers or parents or friends and if the situation is beyond the child's ability to work out we cannot expect growth in selfdiscipline. Will these suggestions for developing self-discipline, namely, providing a base of personal adjustment and adding to that insight into the causes of behavior and into alternatives and their probable consequences—will they work ? Are they effective ? I will cite three types of evidence drawn from our studies. The first is the example from the Morgan study cited above. I think everyone will agree that that lad was exercising a high degree of self-discipline. The second type of evidence comes from a study by Levitt. 1 Levitt administered the responsibility scale developed by Harris and others to the children from two experimental and control groups in our studies, one from grade five and one from grade six. He found 1

Eugene E. Levitt, "Effect of a 'Causal' Teacher Training Program on Authoritarianism and Responsibility in Grade School Children," Psychological Reports, Vol.1, pp. 449-458, 1955.

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significantly higher mean responsibility scores in the experimental groups, that is, in the groups who had received the type of training described here. Finally, I should like to cite an example f r o m one of our fourthgrade classes. We had administered our learning program in human behavior during the second semester to a third grade group. In this learning program we had made considerable use of story material to teach the differences between causal and non-causal approaches to behavior. When the group entered the fourth grade in the fall, one of the girls in the class observed that she was having increasing difficulty in being accepted by her group. The other children rejected her more and more. One day this girl came to her former third-grade teacher with a story about a child who was having difficulty in being liked by the others. She asked this teacher to read this story to her present third-grade class and tell her what the boys and girls suggested as to how such a situation could be worked out. It didn't take the thirdgrade teacher long to find out that the story was about the girl herself. This girl, when she felt the rejection by the others, could have used several non-disciplined methods such as striking out, fighting the others, showing some bizzare behavior, withdrawing f r o m the situation and so on. Instead she used a more constructive, although perhaps more indirect, method than it need have been. It will be noted that in our analysis of the development of selfdiscipline we have made no use of exhortation, appealing to the child's sanity, threatening him or similar methods. Instead we have sought to provide a freedom f r o m chronic insecurity and inadequacy, the insights and appreciations that enable him to see increasingly further ahead as to the consequences of his behavior so that he can feel what behavior will help him to grow as a person in self-respect and personal significance. These are the bases for the self-discipline type of behavior.

Appendix Schoolmen s Week,

ADMINISTRATIVE

OFFICERS

OF

THE

1958

UNIVERSITY

President JONATHAN E . RHOADS, Provost; ISIDOR S . R A V D I N , Vice-President for Medical Development: C A R L C . CHAMBERS, Vice-President for Engineering Affairs; G E N E D . GISBURNE, Vice-President for Student Affairs; J O H N C . HETHERSTON, Secretary. GAYLORD P . HARNWELL,

G E N E R A L C O M M I T T E E FOR S C H O O L M E N ' S WEEK Representing the University: FREDERICK C. G R U B E R , Chairman, Associate Professor of Education WILLIAM B . CASTETTER, Secretary, Associate Professor of Education A R T H U R W . FERGUSON, Staff Associate, Educational Service Bureau LEE O. GARBER, Professor of Education ADOLPH C. GORR, Assistant Professor of German ARLEIGH P. HESS, Jr., Associate Professor of Economics RALPH C . PRESTON, P r o f e s s o r of E d u c a t i o n

HUGH M. SHAFER, Associate Professor of Education DONALD T . SHEEHAN, D i r e c t o r , Public R e l a t i o n s W . WALLACE WEAVER, Vice-Dean, Graduate HENRY L. HERBERT, Director, News Bureau

School of Arts and Sciences

JOHN H. KEYES, Director, Buildings and Grounds

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Members outside the University: M O R T O N BOTEL, Acting Superintendent of Schools, Bucks County W O O D R O W W . B R O W N , Coordinator, York Program A R T H U R T . CLAFFEE, Superintendent of Pennsauken Township Schools, Pennsauken, N.J. M U R I E L CROSBY, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Wilmington, Del. G E R A L D HOTTENSTEIN, Superintendent of Schools, Montgomery County, Norristown, Pa. PHILLIP U. KOOPMAN, Superintendent of Schools, Lower Merion School District, Ardmore, Pa. J. E A R L M A S T , Supervising Principal, E . M . U . Joint School District, Lima, Pa. EDWARD T. MYERS, Superintendent of Schools, District 6, Phila. CATHERINE B . NICHOLS, Director of School Cafeterias, Upper Darby Township, Upper Darby, Pa. TOMPKINS B . SMITH, Coordinator, Lancaster Program. CHARLES S. SWOPE, President, State Teachers College, West Chester, Pa. G. BAKER THOMPSON, Superintendent of Schools, Delaware County, Media, Pa. H A R O L D W I N G E R D , Principal, West Chester High School, West Chester, Pa. PROGRAM COORDINATORS Administration—LEE O. GARBER, Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; Elementary Education—RALPH C. PRESTON, Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; English—Τ. Ε. M. BOLL, Associate Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania; Guidance—JOHN E. FREE, Lecturer in Education, University of Pennsylvania; Health, Recreation and Physical Education — W I L L I A M F . MEREDITH, Professor of Physical Education, and MALVINA T A I Z , Assistant Professor of Physical Education for Women, University of Pennsylvania; Music Education—HELEN E. MARTIN, Assistant Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; Nursing Education—Adaline Chase, Associate Professor of Nursing Education, University of Pennsylvania; Vocational Education and Practical Arts—WALTER B. JONES, Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; Science—J. FREDERICK H A Z E L , Professor of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania; Secondary Education—HUGH M. SHAFER, Associate Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; Teacher Education—THOMAS E. MCMULLIN, Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania.

ADVISORY

COMMITTEE

Distributive Education—SAMUEL W. CAPLAN, Director, Distributive Education Department, Temple University; Geography—JAMES J. FLANNERY, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Pennsylvania; Home Economics— MARJORIE R A N K I N , Assistant Dean, College of Home Economics, Drexel Institute of Technology; Vocational Education and Industrial Arts—H. HALLECK SINGER; Assistant Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania; Modern Languages —A. C. GORR, Assistant Professor of G e r m a n , University of Pennsylvania, Science—C. R I C H A R D SNYDER, R a d n o r Township High School, Wayne, Pa.; Vocational Education and Practical Arts—WALTER B. JONES, Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania.

Appendix President—Mrs.

PHILADELPHIA TEACHERS EDNA W . GRIFFIN

ASSOCIATION

First Vice-President—CHARLES W. TWINING Second Vice-President—Miss ANNA Κ. BEATTY Corresponding Secretary—Miss CATHLEEN M. CHAMPLIN Recording Secretary—Miss E. FRANCES HERVEY Treasurer—Mrs.

ELIZABETH R . HAAS. DREXEL

JAMES CREESE,

INSTITUTE OF

TECHNOLOGY

President

GEORGE C. GALPHIN, Chairman, Department of Psychology and Education REGISTRATION OSEA MCDONALD,

AND

Secretary

ACCOMODATIONS

COMMITTEE

Index Acts, 5,110,113,142,158 George-Barden, 142 National Defense Education, 110, 113, 142, 158 National Vocational, 158 Old Deluder Satan, 5 Smith-Hughes, 158 Adjustment, achieving personal, 348 Administration, 17, 20, 24, 66-68, 76, 89-105 changes in, 20 court decisions, 93-98 preparation for, 66-68, 76 problems of, 17 suggestions for, 24 Adolescents, 32, 181, 231-233, 238 creative expression, 233, 238 needs of, 173-182, 231-233 potentials, 231-233 research on, 32 American education, 15, 16, 20-23, 27, 55-61 American Psychological Association, 270, 315 Aptitudes, research on, 174-180 Arithmetic, 254, 301-311 learning of, 254 readiness, 301-311 materials, 302-311 Art education, 228-230, 233-240 Articulation, 325 Atomic Age, 148 Automatic learning devices, 317 Automation, 145, 146-148 Boccaccio, 121, 123, 128 Bode, Boyd, 38 Bolmeier, E. C., 91 Brophy, John M., 158 Cambridge University, 50

Camus, Albert, 36 Carpenter, John R., 154 Champaign, study, 263 Chase, Marion, 221 Child, the exceptional, 171-204 Children, 7, 171-204, 221-225, 251, 272-283 contribution of dance to, 221-225 education of mentally deficient, 185— 189 gifted, 190-204 exceptional, 7, 171-204 literature for, 272-283 needs of, 251 psychological treatment of, 183-184 Classicism, 134 Coleman, Mary Elisabeth, 293 College(s), 16,18-21, 50, 57, 65-81, 219 Churchill college, 50 state-controlled, 69-70 Common schools, 5 Communism, 136 Comparative education, 17-21, 45-54, 56, 58, 238, 268-271 Dutch, 45-49, 51 English, 45, 49-53, 268-271 German, 17, 18 Russian, 56, 238 Swiss, 17, 18 Components of a good education, 217 Conant, James, 7, 15, 51 Confucius, 35 Constitution of U.S., 16 Convery, John, 144 Counselors in high school, 24, 25 Creative expression, 226-240, 319 and education, 233-240 Creativity, 229 Creese, James, 7, 81 Criticism by Europeans, 60 Criticisms of education, 99-101

355

Index Curriculum for teacher education, 6871 Dance in education, 221-225 as matrix of the arts, 223 Dante, 124 deFrancesco, Italo L., 226 Deluder Satan Act, 5 Demands of science on schools, 6 Democracy, 26, 190-194 understanding of, 26 foundation for, 190-194 Dewey, John, 38, 39 Dice, L. Kathryn, 173 Discipline, 235, 345-350 development of self-discipline, 345350 Diversity in education, 15, 17, 19, 2123, 25, 27, 57 Dolch, Edward W„ 294-295 Durrell, Donald C., 264-265 Dutch education, 45-49, 51 Eaton, Anne T., 274 Education, 5-7, 15-27, 3 7 ^ 2 , 45-61, 65-83, 99-101, 104-105, 109-113, 139-170, 173-220, 227-228, 233240, 247-350 American, 15, 16, 20-23, 27, 55-61 an art, 250 and creative expression, 233-240 and existentialism, 37-42 and technology, 168-170, 250 and the constitution, 16 common school, 5 components of a good education, 217 criticisms of, 99-101 diversity in, 15, 17, 19, 21-23, 25, 27, 57 educational systems, 5-7, 15, 16, 20, 45, 50 elementary education, 5-7, 17, 53, 109-113, 183-204,247-350 European, 18-21,45-54,58 higher, 16, 18-21, 46, 50-52, 57, 64-81, 182,219 mass communication in, 207-220 metallurgical education, 152-153 of exceptional children, 7, 171-204 public, 16

recommendations for, 26, 27, 54, 60, 61,239,240 Rockefeller Report on, 104-105, 227-228 secondary, 8, 15-16, 24-27, 50-53, 57, 173-182,205-245 specialization in, 8 technical, 7, 50, 58, 81-83, 141-148, 152-170 vocational, 7, 25, 26, 58, 139-170 Education, comparative, 17-21, 45-54, 56,58,238,268-271 Dutch, 45-49, 51 English, 45, 49-53, 268-271 French, 17, 18 Russian, 56, 238 Swiss, 17, 18 Educational systems, 5, 6, 15, 16, 20, 45, 50 Eisenhower, Milton, 182 Elementary education, 5-7, 17, 53, 109-113, 183-204,247-350 for mentally deficient children, 185189 for the gifted, 190-204 foreign language in, 109-113 psychological treatment in, 183-189 reading, 261-271 teacher education for, 51, 53, 65-80, 112-113, 117-118, 168-170 Emerson, Caroline D., 284 Engineering, 152-153 England, 49, 52, 268, 270 English education, 45, 49 53, 268-271 Enrollments in schools, 6 Equality, ideal of, 7 European education, 18-21, 45-54, 58 Exceptional children, 7, 171-204 Existential Moment, 34, 40 Existentialism, 28-42 and education, 37-42 nature of, 28-37 Existentialist(s), 28-30, 33, 34, 37 Explosions, 226 "The American Explosion", 226 Expressionism, 136 Extrinsic learning, 318 Extrinsic motivation, 252 Federal Communications sion, 213,214

Commis-

356 Flesch, Rudolf, 263 Foreign languages, 19, 20, 22, 26, 48, 56, 107-137 in elementary school, 109-112 in secondary schools, 114-118 Franklin, Benjamin, 228 France, 16, 59, 60 French education, 17, 18, 56 Fräser, Dorothy McClure, 321 Freud, 136 Freudianism, 60 Garrison, Mortimer, Jr., 185 Geography in the elementary school, 338-344 in the high school, 241-245 George-Barden Act, 142 German education, 17, 18 Germans, 16 Germany, 15-17, 56 German Novelle, 119-137 Gifted children, 190-204 discovering the gifted, 197-200 education for, 190-204 Goethe, 119-123, 127, 129-130, 132, 134 Golden Age of Greece, 226 Gorr, Adolph C., 114 Gray, Clarence T., 267 Grossnickle, Foster E., 301 Guggenheimer, Richard, 229 Guidance, 24, 181 Guilford, J. P., 230-231 Handwriting, 284-292 basic handwriting, 285-289 cursive, 290 manuscript writing, 285-287, 290 Harper, Ralph, 41 Harris, Albert J., 261 Herbert, 114, 118 Heyse.Paul, 126, 130,131,135 High school, 6, 7, 15, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 2 6 , 4 6 , 51, 114-118, 173-182, 207211,231-233 needs of students, 173-182 use of television, 207-211 Higher education, 1 6 , 1 8 - 2 1 , 4 6 , 50-52, 57,64-81,182,219 Hildreth, Gertrude, 203

Index Hogan, Howard K., 141 Holland, 4 5 ^ 9 , 51-53 education in, 45-49, 50 Hollingworth, Leta. 295 Hunter College elementary 203-204

school,

Idealism, 133 Impressionism, 136 Individual differences, 255-258 Industry, demands on, 158-170 Instrumentation, 148 International Reading Association, 269 Intrinsic motivation, 252-253 Jefferson, Thomas, 5 Jung, 136 Konick, Marcus, 212 Laboratories, 81-88 Languages, foreign, 19-20, 22, 26, 48, 56, 107-137 modern, 107-137 teaching of, 109-118 Larrick, Nancy, 274 Learning, 253-258, 304-305, 312-321, 324 apparatus, 315 automatic devices, 317 extrinsic, 318 principles of, 253-258, 304-305, 316 reinforcement in, 253-255, 313-314, 316-319 transfer value. 324 Levitt, Eugene E., 349 Libraries, 72, 81-88 and laboratories, 81-83 and self-education, 86-87 traveling library of science, 88 Listening in social studies work, 336337 Literature for children, 272-283 criteria, 282 Lubin, Isador, 145 Ludwig, Otto, 132, 134-135 McCracken, Glenn, 262, 265-266 Mann, Horace, 5 Mann, Thomas, 137

Index Mass communication, 207-220 Mathewson, Robert Η., 7, 45 Mental development, 256-257 Metallurgical education, 152-153 Methods, 53 Mildenberger, Kenneth, 109, 117 Morgan, Mildred I., 347-349 Morris, Van Cleve, 28 Motivation, 51, 250-253, 255, 323 extrinsic motivation, 252 intrinsic motivation, 252 for skill learning, 323 National Council of Teachers of English, 217 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 301 National Defense Education Act, 110, 113, 142, 158 National Vocational Education Act, 158 Naturalism, 132, 136 Naturalists, 134 Navy Enlistment policy, 150-151 specialization in, 149 Navy Training Programs, 149-151 Needs of children, 251 New Castle study in reading, 265-267 Norris, Dorothy E., 203 Obligations of art teachers, 240 Ojemann, Ralph H., 8, 345 Organizations, professional, 99-105 recommendations for, 102-105 Osborn, Alex, 230 Pavlov, 312, 313 Personal adjustment, achieving, 348 Peyre, Henri, 7, 55 Phillips, Joseph F., 147 Philosophy, 28-42, 59, 102, 132-134, 136 existentialism, 28-42 of education, 102 Phonics, controversy over, 266-267 Poetic Realism, 132-134 Pressey, S. L., 316-317 Principles of learning, 253-258, 304305, 316 Problem solving, 254-255, 330-331

357 developing skills in, 330-331 Professional responsibilities, 240 Professional societies, 83-84,141 Psychological treatment of children, 183-189 Psychology, 8, 249-260 books related to education, 259-260 contribution to elementary school, 8, 249-259 Public education, 16 Punishment, 255, 319 in education, 255 Pupil placement acts, 97-98 Quality, 7, 8, 17 and quantity in American education, 7, 8 of education, 17 of living, 8 Readiness in arithmetic, 301-311 Reading Association, International, 269 Reading Disability, 266-271 causation of, 267-271 neurological handicaps, 269-270 reviews of literature, 268-269 Reading, teaching of, 261-271 Champaign study, 263-265 controversial issues, 261-271 Durrell study, 264-265 in other countries, 268-271 methods for beginners, 262-267 New Castle study, 262, 265-266 Non-Oral Method, 261 Reading tests, 264 Realism, Poetic, 132-134, 136 Recommendations for education, 2627, 54, 60-61, 239-240 Reinforcement in learning, 253-255, 313-314, 316-319 Remmers, Η. H., 32 Renaissance, 226, 227, 235 American Renaissance, 227 Research, 32, 174-180, 263-266, 347350 adolescence, 32 aptitudes, 174-180 beginning reading, 263-266 human behaviour, 347-349 teacher training program, 349-350

358

Index

Rice, J. M., 293 Riesman, David, 31 R o b b , J. Preston, 269 Robinson, Helen, 268 Rockefeiler Report, 104-105, 227-228 Rogers, C o m m a n d e r W. H., 149 Romanticism, 132 Russell, James E., 249 Russell, John Dale, 65 Russia, 100, 257, 319 Russian education, 56, 238 Russians, 16

Spelling, 293-300, 315 Spielhagen, Friedrich, 131 Sputnik, 55, 99, 101, 152 State systems of education, 5 Storm, T h e o d o r , 126, 130, 135 Strange, R u t h , 7, 183, 195 Supreme C o u r t decisions, 6, 93, 95, 97 Surrealism, 136 Sweden, 270 Swiss education, 18-19 Switzerland, 17-19 Symonds, Percival M., 8, 249, 312

Sack, Marion J., 7, 190 Schaefer, A. O., 152 Schegel, Friedrich,128-129, 131, 133 Schiller, 127, 133, 134 School enrollments, 6 School Personel, p r e p a r a t i o n of, 65-80 School policy, 91-93 Science, 50, 56, 86, 88, 201, 202, 322 m e n of, 86 National F o u n d a t i o n , 88 Traveling Library of, 88 Scientists, need for, 6 Secondary education, 8, 15-16, 24-27, 50, 53, 57, 173-182, 205-245 art education, 228-230, 233-240 geography in, 241-245 needs of, 180-182 reading programs in, 180 television in, 207-211 Self-discipline, development of, 345350 Self education, 86-87 and libraries, 86-87 "Self-expression", 237 Shevlin, Alexander, 207 Silz, Walter, 119 Skill development, 321, 323-325 basic principles, 323-325 Skinner, B. F., 254, 314-317 Smith, Donald E. P., 269-270 Smith Hughes Act, 158 Social studies skills, 321-344 defined, 322-323 instruction in, 325-344 Societies, professional, 83-84, 99-105 Specialization, 8, 149 in education, 8 in the Navy, 149

Teaching, 53, 66, 109-118, 207-220, 241-245 methods, 53 of English, 207-220 of foreign language, 109-118 of geography, 241-245 of social studies, 321-344 requirements for, 66 Teacher education, 51, 53, 65-80, 112113,117-118,168-170 and demands of technology, 168-170 curriculum, 68-71 faculty, 71 for foreign languages, 112-113, 117118 follow-up studies, 77-78 observation and demonstration, 72, 73 relationships to community, 78 selection of students, 74 76 Teacher placement, 77 Technical education, 7, 50, 58, 81-83, 141-148, 152-170 Technology and education, 168-170, 250 Television, 207-220 educational medium for adults, 219220 educational stations, 214 programs in Philadelphia Public Schools, 209-210 use by teachers, 215-216, 220 Tests, 115, 180-181, 264 aptitude, 175 better use of, 180-181 Detroit W o r d Recognition, 264 Metropolitan Reading, 264

359

Index Thorndike, Edward L., 2 4 9 - 2 5 0 Thralls, Zoe Α., 241 Three R's, 5 Tieck, Ludwig, 122, 123, 129, 130 Tillich, 35 Tottie, J o h n , 272 Trade unions, 142 Transfer value o f learning, 324 Universities, 6 5 - 8 1 American, 19, 60 European, 18, 19 state controlled, 69 University, 18, 1 9 , 4 6 , 50, 52, 182 Cambridge, 50 J o h n Hopkins, 182 o f Amsterdam, 62 preparation for, 18, 19, 46

Vernon, M . D . , 268 Vischer, Friedrich, Theodor, 131 Vocational education, 7, 25, 26, 58, 139-170 vonKleist, Henrich, 122-124 Washington, George, 5 Wieland, 123, 128 Writing, 2 7 2 - 2 9 2 cursive, 290 for young readers, 2 7 2 - 2 8 3 handwriting, 2 8 4 - 2 9 2 manuscript, 2 8 5 - 2 8 7 , 290 Zahn, D . Willard, 99 Zen, 3 3 - 3 5 Zen Buddhists, 33, 35