FOUR FACTORS IN NATURAL GROWTH
The Elementary School of the University of Missouri, at Columbia, under
the direction of Prof. J. L. Meriam, has much in common with Mrs.
Johnson’s school at Fairhope. In its fundamental idea, that education
shall follow the natural development of the child, it is identical, but
its actual organization and operation are sufficiently different to
make a description of it suggestive. In common with most educational
reformers, Professor Meriam believes the schools of the past have been
too much concerned with teaching children adult facts. In attempting to
systematize and standardize, the curriculum has ignored the needs of
the individual child. He believes that the work and play of the school
should be children’s work and play; that the children should enjoy
school. The life there should be like, only better than, the life of
the children outside the school; better because they are helped to know
how to play and work correctly and to do it with other children.
“Do children remember how they learned to talk? No, but their parents
remember for them. Yet most of us, both children and adults, remember
how we struggled in learning to read and write at school. We learned to
talk simply by talking when we were in need or had something to say.
We learned to say, ‘Please, Mamma, give me a drink,’ when we wanted a
drink. We did not practice on such words at nine o’clock each morning.
The pupils in the University Elementary School learn to read, to write,
to draw, and to do other things, just when they need to do so. The
pupils do in this school about what they would do at home, but they
learn to do it better. They work and play. At home they are very active
most of the time doing many things; and so they are in this school.”
What would these children naturally be doing if there were no school?
On the answer to this question Professor Meriam has based his
curriculum, which contains but one subject that appears on the ordinary
program; namely, handwork. They would, he says, be playing outdoors,
exercising their bodies by running, jumping, or throwing; they would
be talking together in groups, discussing what they had seen or heard;
they would be making things to use in their play: boats, bean bags,
dolls, hammocks, or dresses; if they live in the country they would
be watching animals or plants, making a garden or trying to fish.
Every one recognizes that the child develops quite as much through
such activities as through what he learns in school, and that what he
learns out of school is much more apt to become a part of his working
knowledge, because it is entirely pleasurable and he recognizes the
immediate use of it. Again, these occupations are all closely connected
with the business of living; and we send our children to school to
learn this. What, then, could be more natural than making the school’s
curriculum of such material? This is what Professor Meriam does. The
day is divided into four periods, which are devoted to the following
elements: play, stories, observation, and handwork. For the younger
children the work is drawn almost entirely from the community in which
they live; they spend their time finding out more about the things they
are already familiar with. As they grow older their interest naturally
reaches out to remoter things and to the processes and reasons back of
things; and they begin to study history, geography, and science.
The time of the first three grades is divided in this way: From 9 to
10:30, observation; 10:30 to 11, physical exercises; from 11 to 12,
play; 1:30 to 3, stories; and 3 to 4, handwork.
[Illustration: Games often require muscular skill, reading, writing,
and arithmetic. (University School, Columbia, Mo.)]
The observation period is devoted to the study of one topic, and this
topic may take only a single morning or it may take several weeks.
While there is a general plan for the year’s work, if the children
bring up anything which seems of importance to them and which fits in,
the program is laid aside and the teacher helps the pupils in their
study of their own problem. This might be true of any of the studies
of the day; the program is flexible, the school aims to meet the
individual needs of the child and the group. The observation periods of
the first three grades are devoted to a study of flowers, trees, and
fruits; birds and animals, of the weather and the changing seasons, of
holidays, of the town grocery store, or the neighborhood dwellings, and
the clothing that the children see for sale in the stores. The pupils
learn to read and write and figure only as they feel the need of it to
enlarge their work. The nature work is taught as much as possible out
of doors; the children take walks with the teacher and talk about the
trees, plants, and animals they meet on their way; they gather tadpoles
and fish for the school aquarium and pick out a tree to watch and
keep a record of for the whole year. Their study of the weather also
lasts through the whole year; they watch the changing seasons, what
things look like in the fall and what happens as winter begins, what
the plants and animals do in winter, etc. In this way they watch the
whole cycle of the year, and learn unconsciously the relation between
their own climate and the vegetation and animal life about them.
The study of their own food, shelter, and clothing is concentrated into
a consecutive period, and as interest and time dictate it is added to
by a study of some phases of local life that are not concerned with
the actual necessities of life. They learn about their neighbors’
recreations and pleasures by studying the jewelry store and the circus,
or the community interests of their parents by studying the local fire
department and post-office.
The method of study is the same for all work. First, with help from
the teacher the children tell all they know about the subject they are
beginning to study; if it is food, each child has an opportunity to say
anything he can think of about it; what his own family eats, where the
food comes from, how it is taken care of, what he has noticed in the
grocery stores, etc. Then the whole class with the teacher make a visit
to the grocery store, spend perhaps all the morning there, each child
trying to see how much he can find out for himself. Before they start
the teacher has called their attention to the fact that the things
are sold by the quart, etc., for the subject of weights and measures
seems to be of absorbing interest to the children when approached from
this side. Some first grade children have proved to be remarkably keen
detectives in noticing the grocer’s innumerable devices for making
quantities look greater than they are. The pupils are also encouraged
to note and compare prices, and to bring food budgets from home
whenever their parents are willing. When they return to their classroom
they again discuss what they have seen, and those who can write make a
list with prices of all the articles which they can remember, or write
an account of their visit, which is dictated by the teacher from the
oral accounts the children themselves have given of it.
The pupils who cannot read will draw a picture of the grocery store or
perhaps have a reading lesson in the catalogue the grocer has given
them. Later they will study the way the grocer delivers his goods to
his patrons, and in a very general way where the things come from.
They will bring grocers’ bills from home, compare them, add them up,
and discuss the question of economical and nutritious food. Perhaps
they will do the same thing with the milk and bakery business, before
moving on to the question of the houses in the neighborhood. This and
the clothing and recreation of the town will be studied in the same
way. Later the class will visit the fire department and the post-office
and find out what each is for and how they are conducted. This and
the study of local amusements usually come in the third grade. The
opportunity for the constant use of reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and for drill in the correct use of spoken English, is obvious.
Professor Meriam is insistent upon the fact that this study of the
community in which the child lives is made for the educational value of
the work itself to the pupil, never as a mere cloak for the teaching of
“the three R’s,” which must be done only as it contributes directly to
the work the children are doing.
The period devoted to games by the first three grades is of the same
educational value. The children are exercising their bodies, learning
to control them and to make skillful motions aimed at some immediate
result. Much variety and liberty is allowed in this work, and the
teacher is only an observer. Most of the games the children play are
competitive, for they have found that the element of skill and chance
is what the pupils need to make them work hard at the games. Bean
bags and nine pins are favorites; any game, in fact, where they can
keep score; the teacher acts as scorekeeper for the little children,
and when the game is over they copy the score in a folder to refer to
and see how they progress. The better they play, the more they enjoy
the game; so they watch the best player, studying how he moves and
stands, and make drawings. The teacher also writes on the board some
of the things the pupils say as they play, and at the end of the game
they find a reading lesson which they have made themselves and which
gives an account of their game; in copying this into their folders
they have a writing lesson. The children are allowed to talk and laugh
as much as they please while they are playing, and this is an English
lesson. Great variety is introduced into the games so as to encourage
the pupils to talk freely, and added stimulus is given by using
interesting things to play with, bright colored balls, dolls, and gaily
painted “roly-polys.” The new words and phrases the children use are
written down in the daily account of the game, and in this way their
vocabulary is enlarged in a natural way.
The hour devoted to stories is no more a reading and writing lesson
than all the rest of the day’s work. Children immensely enjoy good
stories, therefore they ought to be given plenty of opportunity to
become acquainted with them. During this period, the teacher and the
children tell stories to each other; not stories they have studied
from their primers, but stories that they already know, that they have
listened to, or read because they enjoyed them. Every child likes to be
listened to, and they soon discover they must tell their story well or
they will get no audience. Some stories they tell by acting them out,
others by drawing. Soon they want to learn a new group of stories, and
then, quite naturally, they go to the school library, pick out a story
book and read. It has been found that the first grade pupils read from
twelve to thirty books during the year; the second grade pupils from
twenty-five to fifty. In this way they learn to read, to read good
books--for there is nothing else in the library--and to read them well,
for they always have the desire to find a story to tell to their class,
or one that they can act. Appreciation of good literature begins very
early in this way, or rather, it is never lost. Very small children
always enjoy most the best stories--Mother Goose, Hans Andersen, or
Kipling’s “Just So Stories.” The dislike of books gained in school
turns children from literature to trash. But if children are allowed
and encouraged to hear, and read, and act out these stories in school
just as they would at home--that is, for the sake of the fun there is
in it--they will keep their good taste and enjoyment of good books.
Songs, says Professor Meriam, are another sort of story, and little
children sing for the fun of it, for the story of the song; so the
singing at this school is part of the story work, and the children work
and learn to sing better, in order to increase their enjoyment.
Children are always clamoring to “make something.” Professor Meriam
takes this fact as sufficient grounds for making handwork a regular
part of the curriculum and having it occupy an hour a day, a period
which usually seems so short to the pupils that they take their
work home. The youngest children, boys and girls alike, go into the
carpenter shop and learn to handle tools and to make things: furniture
for their dolls, a boat, or some present to take home. Weaving and
sewing interest both boys and girls alike and give scope to the young
child for beauty and utility, so they do a lot of it. The youngest
begin usually with dolls’ hammocks; then they learn to do coarse
cross-stitching and crocheting. An entire class, especially among
the youngest children, usually make the same thing at the same time,
but they may suggest what they want to make, and the older children
are allowed a great deal of liberty. The work naturally increases in
variety and complexity as the pupils grow older, and as they acquire
skill in the handling of tools. Some of the fifth and sixth grade boys
have made excellent pieces of furniture which are in constant use in
the school. The handwork furnishes another opportunity for drawing and
color work, in the making of drawings for patterns.
With the fourth grade there is a marked shift in the work, due to the
widening interests that are coming to the child. The day is divided
then into three periods, which are devoted to industries, stories, and
handwork. Organized games no longer appeal to the pupils; they want
their play outdoors, or in the freedom of a big gymnasium, where they
can play rougher, noisier games, and they are big enough to keep their
own scores in their heads. The “industries” period takes the place of
the “observation” of the younger children, and continues the same sort
of work. The child has learned the meaning of the immediate objects he
sees about him, their relation to himself and his friends, and he is
ready to go on and enlarge this knowledge so as to take in the things
he cannot see, processes and reasons, and relations that embrace the
whole community, or more communities, and finally the whole world.
In the same way that the younger children study their immediate
environment, the fourth grade studies the industries that go on in
their own neighborhood: the shoe factory, the flour mill, the work in
the wheat and corn fields. They go on excursions to the factory and
farm, and their work in the classroom is based on what they see on
their trips. Their writing and composition are the stories of their
trips, which they write; their reading, the books that tell about
farming or shoemaking; their arithmetic the practical problems they
find the farmer or foreman doing; all done so that it will contribute
to the pupils’ understanding of the industry he is studying. Geography
too comes from these trips. It answers the questions: Why do they grow
wheat? Where will it grow best in the neighborhood and why? etc. This
school happens to be situated in a small town where the industries are
chiefly agricultural, but obviously such a plan could easily be adapted
to any community by substituting the industries that are found in the
immediate neighborhood.
In the fifth and sixth years the study of industries is continued,
but the scope is extended to include the principal industries of the
world. Here, of course, pupils must learn to substitute more and more
the printed page for their former excursions. This includes drill in
reading, writing, and mathematics, related to earlier studies, and
also more and more geography. The use of the library becomes of great
importance, for the pupils are not given one text-book from which they
study and recite. Work in geography begins with this question: What
becomes of the things made in this town, which we do not use up? The
next step is: Where else are these same things made, and are they made
in the same way? What else is made in that place and how is it done?
Then, where and how are the things made that we get from elsewhere?
No one text-book could suffice for this work, and if it did it would
contradict the idea of the school that the children should learn by
investigation. They must find for themselves from among the books in
the library the ones that tell about the particular industry they
are studying. Every child does not read the same book, and as far as
possible each pupil makes some contribution to the discussion. Just as
in the lower grades, the older pupils all make folders where they keep
their descriptions of the industries and illustrations of machines and
processes.
In the seventh and highest grade in the school, the study of industries
is continued as history; that is, the history of the industries
connected with clothing, feeding, and housing is taken up. The pupils
study the history of shelter from the first beginnings with a cave or
a brush thicket, through the tents of the wandering tribes and the
Greek and Roman house, to the steel skyscraper of to-day. They study
the history of agriculture and learn to understand the development of
the steam reaper and thresher from the wooden stick of the savage.
The study of the industries in these four higher grades includes a
study of the institutions of government. The fourth grade studies the
local post-office, in the fifth and sixth they study the mail system
of the United States, and then how letters are carried to all parts
of the world. The seventh grade studies the history of some of these
institutions. Part of their time during the past year was devoted to
finding out how the different peoples of the world have fought their
battles and organized their armies, first by means of reading and then
by discussing what they had read. Each pupil kept a record of this
work, writing a short paper on the army of each country he studied and
illustrating it as he cared to.
The story period of the four highest grades continues the work begun
in the lower grades. Music and art become more and more concentrated
into it. The children continue reading and discussing what they have
read. Each pupil keeps a record of the books he reads with a short
account of the story and reasons why he liked it, and these records
are kept on a shelf in the library where any other pupil can consult
them for help in his choice of books. Even in high school, Professor
Meriam does not believe in teaching composition for its own sake, nor
literature by the usual method of analysis. All the work of the school
is a constant drill in English, and by helping the pupils to use and
write good English during every school hour, more is accomplished than
by concentrating the work into one hour of formal drill.
The teaching of French and German is also considered part of story
work. It is a study the pupils take for the pleasure they get from
talking and reading another language; for the sake of the literature
they will be able to read. For this reason it finds its place in the
curriculum among the things that are purely cultural: for recreation
and pleasure. The studies that come under the title of “stories” are
the only ones where homework is given. The children come to school to
do their work, and it is not fair to ask them to do this same work at
home as well. They should look forward to school as a pleasure, if they
are to get the utmost benefit out of it, but if the doing of set tasks
becomes associated with school work, the pupil’s interest in his work
in school is bound to diminish. If, however, some of the school work is
regarded as appropriate to leisure and recreation, it is natural that
the children should keep on with it out of school hours, in their homes.
The school has been working with this program for eight years, and
has about 120 pupils. The school building has few rooms and these are
connected with large folding doors. At least two and usually three
grades work in the same room, and the pupils are allowed freedom to
move about and talk to each other as long as they do not disturb
their classmates. One teacher takes charge of an entire room, about
thirty-five children, divided into several groups, each doing a
different thing. Individual teachers in some of the neighboring country
public schools have also followed the program through one grade and
have found that the pupils were all ready for promotion at the end of
the year and that they did their work in the next grade with as much
ease as if they had followed the usual formal drill. Records are being
kept of the graduates of the elementary school. Most of them go into
the high school of the university, where there is every opportunity to
watch them closely. They find no unusual difficulty in keeping up with
the regular college preparatory work, and their marks and the age at
which they enter college indicate that their elementary training has
given them some advantages over the public school pupils in ability to
do the hard formal studying.
Professor Meriam is also director of the high school, but has not as
yet changed the regular college preparatory curriculum, except in the
English. He expects to do so, however, and believes an equally radical
reorganization of the work will have beneficial results. In the high
school, English is not taught at all as a separate study, but work
on it is continued along the same lines followed in the elementary
school. A study of a certain number of graduates from the university
schools and an equal number from the town high school, has indicated
that the pupils who have received none of the usual training in English
during their high school course do better work in their English courses
in college than those who have followed the regular routine.
[Illustration: (1) Printing teaches English. (Francis Parker School,
Chicago.)]
[Illustration: (2) The basis of the year’s work. (Indianapolis.)]
Of course, judging an educational experiment by the pupil’s ability
to “keep up” with the system the experiment is trying to improve, is
of very little value. The purpose of the experiment is not to devise
a method by which the teacher can teach more to the child in the same
length of time, or even prepare him more pleasantly for his college
course. It is rather to give the child an education which will make
him a better, happier, more efficient human being, by showing him what
his capabilities are and how he can exercise them, both materially and
socially, in the world he finds about him. If, while a school is still
learning how best to do this for its pupils, it can at the same time
give them all they would have gained in a more conventional school, we
can be sure there has been no loss. Any manual skill or bodily strength
that their schooling has given them, or any enjoyment of the tasks
of their daily life and the best that art and literature has to offer,
are further definite gains that can be immediately seen and measured.
All contribute to the larger aim, but the lives of all the pupils will
furnish the only real test of the success or failure of any educational
experiment that aims to help the whole of society by helping the whole
individual.