[Reverse.] RULES GOVERNING CREDIT FOR HOME WORK. Every Friday afternoon a Home Work Record Slip will be given to each pupil. Beginning with Sunday, all time spent by the pupil in home work should be entered in the proper space. Each Monday morning a slip filled during the previous week should be returned to the teacher. The slip must be signed by the parent or guardian as an assurance that a correct record has been kept. Any work not listed but of value to the parents may be counted, and the nature of the work specified in the blank spaces. At the close of the school month, when the report of school work is made out, in the column "Home Work," the pupil will be marked on the scale of 100 for actual work of not less than one-half hour each day, and in the column "Personal Care" on the scale of 100 for numbers A, B, C, and D, and for attendance at church or Sunday school. In addition to credit on the report card, reward may be given at the option of the principal for a specified amount of time spent in useful work at home. For purpose of reward credit of 5 minutes a day will be allowed for each operation listed as A, B, C, and D, and 20 minutes for attendance at church or Sunday school. In Sioux City the credits are limited to instrumental music; in Leavenworth one unit of credit is allowed in the high school for work done in any vocation, where the work has been checked up by heads of departments and found to be worthy of credit; in St. Cloud the credits gained by high-school students in outside work do not reduce the number of school credits required for graduation, but are extra credits or honors. XII. CLASSIFICATION AND PROMOTION. Not only are the vocational needs of individual children looked after as never before by the school management, but arrangements for the individual child's progress through the grades unhindered and unhurried by others are also a matter of study and experiment at the present time, notwithstanding the fact that for 20 years promotion of pupils has been a subject for discussion in every school system. In systems that have adopted the six-grade elementary plan, followed by differentiated courses in the seventh and eighth grades, either with or without the designation "junior high school," the proper classification of children can be more surely brought about, though from the standpoint of program making not more easily. One superintendent somewhat naively calls attention to the fact that since special classes and sections were formed in his schools, there are more questions coming up that he must decide. The old lock-step system caused little vexation of spirit in the superintendent; much in the children. In these days, happily, conditions are becoming reversed. Promotion schemes come and go. The celebrated Cambridge double-track plan has been modified beyond recognition. The Pueblo plan emphasized the importance of the individual so effec tively that all school men took notice, but as an exclusive system it is no longer found in operation anywhere. The North Denver plan is said to have furnished the idea underlying the "group system" now used in some New York schools and elsewhere, but changed conditions have superseded all these plans as complete and independent schemes. They have made their contributions and now appear only as elements in other plans. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION. Dr. C. Ward Crampton, director of physical training in New York, is quoted as saying that children should be classified according to their physiological development, rather than according to their school age in years. From birth to maturity children develop at different rates, some outstripping others in the race, so that at the age of 14 about one-third are already men and women, one-third are in a transition period, and one-third are quite immature. The difference between the mature and immature of the same age is so marked that it is astonishing that the idea of separating them for educational purposes has not occurred to our school authorities. The mature group are 30 to 50 per cent stronger and 10 to 15 per cent taller than the immature group of the same age. The mental abilities show an even more striking difference. In short, of those who are from 12 to 15 years of age, some are young men and others are children, regardless of their ages in years or progress in school. The young men with their ripened potential abilities sit on the same benches, are taught the same lessons, and are subject to the same discipline as children, and the results are quite as poor as they would naturally be under these circumstances. The fundamental fact that the immature and mature are wholly different and should receive different educational and social treatment is disregarded. In the elementary school the mature do badly; in the high school, frankly fitted to their needs, they do 20 to 50 per cent better than the immature. While it is at this point that the educational system on the inflexible system of scholasticism and chronological age breaks down, it suffers also from a lack of rational classification wherever mature and immature children are brought together in the same classroom. Several years ago Dr. Crampton worked out his plan of classifying pupils according to physiological development in one high school and wo elementary schools. In the high school in which the plan was tried Dr. Crampton found that 35 per cent fewer pupils dropped out of eight sections than from four sections classified according to cu-tom. In the two elementary schools this system was tried in the last three classes. Equally satisfactory results were reported. The plan will be extended throughout the Commercial High School and will include four more elementary schools. THE NORTH ADAMS PLAN. The course of study in the North Adams (Mass.) elementary schools makes no reference to years or grades, for the whole work is not divided into 9 parts, each part representing one year's work, but into 24 equal parts instead. This makes it possible to group the pupils according to ability, allowing each to go forward as fast as he can without "skipping." For instance, many pupils will find it easy to take three sections of work each year and thereby complete the course in eight years, as represented in diagram 1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 222 23 24 DIAGRAM 1. Others, on account of ill health or for other good reasons, may not be able to cover three sections every year. For all such two sections taken occasionally will enable them to graduate in nine years, as shown in diagram 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 DIAGRAM 2. If, on the other hand, certain pupils are able, without undue effort, to take four sections occasionally, they will be prepared to graduate from the grammar school at the end of seven years. See diagram 3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 DIAGRAM 3 The work in each school is so planned that in each room there are two or three groups of pupils instead of one class. Therefore, the number of the room never means grade or year. If at any time it is necessary to know how far along in the course any boy or girl is, one simply asks, "What section of work is he doing!" For instance, if a boy is in section 12, he is half through the course; if in section S, one-third through, and so on. SPECIAL CLASSES Returns from 182 cities indicate that the special class for exceptional children of one or more types is a feature well-nigh universal. Scial provisions for the feeble-minded and backward are still far more common than special provision for the highly gifted, though two cities not previously credited with such classes now report them. These are Southbridge and Springfield, Mass. Southbridge reports a selected eighth-grade class, taking Latin and algebra. In Springfield, selected pupils in the last two elementary grades are offered a modern foreign language as an extra study with high-school credit and firstyear high-school English. Subject promotion has been extended downward to include the last three grammar grades, making them practically, though not in name, the junior high school. THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. The junior high school consists usually of the last two grades of the elementary schools and the first high-school grade, with the teaching organized departmentally and with differentiated courses to meet the needs of pupils of different tastes, different aptitudes, and different life purposes. Of 182 cities reporting, 17 have either adopted the junior high-school plan or are preparing to do so. Doubtless some of these, if not all, should be classed as making provision for highly gifted children in their differentiated courses. THE CITY COLLEGE. The city college, or municipal university, organized to carry the pupils four years beyond the high school, exists at present only in Cincinnati, though Los Angeles is moving in this direction. Akron, Ohio, will soon take over Buchtel College and make it a part of the city school system. The State legislature, at its session of 1913, enacted a law permitting cities to take over universities, the same to become city universities, to be maintained under a board of trustees appointed by the mayor and approved by the city council. The same law also empowers the taxing body of the city to levy a tax, not to exceed 5 mills, for the support of the city university. The Akron city council recently passed an ordinance to assume control of Buchtel College. The college authorities were desirous of making the transfer. Just as soon as the tax can be levied, the college, with all its endowments, equipments, etc., will become a city university, under the control of the board of trustees to be appointed by the mayor. XIII. DEPARTMENTAL TEACHING IN THE GRADES. In order to secure definite information relating to departmental teaching in city schools, the United States Bureau of Education recently sent a questionnaire upon this subject to superintendents in cities of 5,000 population and over. Of 813 replies received, 461 report departmental teaching, some in all subjects and others in only a few. Not many have departmental teaching below the sixth grade and few favor it below the seventh, if there are eight grades in the elementary school. It is usually stated that coordination is secured chiefly by frequent conferences of teachers, close supervision, and detailed courses of study. The following is a tabulation by States of replies to the principal questions: The following are typical of the views expressed by those who have experimented with departmental teaching in the grades: 1. Succeeds with the strong and industrious pupils and fails with the weak and lazy. 2. Tends to develop independence and self-reliance. 3. Danger of teachers making their subjects of more importance than their pupils. 4. Have had departmental teaching since 1896-97 and have found that it is more economical; that it requires pupils to be independent of the teacher; that they are better able to express their ideas, and that promotion can be made by subject. |