FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN
I Child Growth--A Primary Factor in Child Life
In the first place children have certain needs because in common with
many other living creatures they develop through spontaneous,
self-expressive activity. The growth of children is a growth in body, in
mind and in soul.
During the first six years of life the bodies of children grow rapidly,
and during these years we wisely make no attempt to train their minds.
From six to twelve or thirteen body growth is slower, the mind is having
its turn at development, and during these years the children start to
school.
Then, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, differing with different races
and different individuals, all normal children enter the fairyland of
adolescence. Life takes on new meanings, human relationships are closer,
great currents of feeling run deep and strong through the child's being,
because there is coming into his life one of the most wonderful of human
experiences--the dawning of sex consciousness.
This period of sex awakening produces a profound change in the lives of
boys, but it works an even greater transformation in the lives of girls.
For both sexes it is a time of rapid physical growth and of severe
mental and spiritual strain. It is a time when the energies of the body
are so entirely devoted to the development of sex functions that great
mental stress should above all things be avoided, yet it is at this
very time--think of it!--when we send our boys and girls to high school,
and force them to spend a great part of their waking hours in severe
intellectual efforts.
II Children Need Health First
Had we set out with the deliberate intention of torturing our children
we could have devised no better method. If we had applied ourselves to
physiology, found out the time when the child needed the most energy for
physical growth and the most relief from mental strain, and had then set
out to plan a course of study which would wreck his health, we should
have built a school system which gave him the comparatively easy work of
the elementary grades until he was fourteen, and then, at the most
critical period of his life, sent him into a new system of schools to
study new, abstract subjects.
What is it that our children must have before they can acquire anything
else? Health! We cry the word aloud, emphasizing and exhorting--nothing
without health! Yet, despite our protest, at a period of rapid physical
growth, at the time of severe spiritual trial, there yawns the high
school--grim for boys, ghastly for girls--with its ever-recurring
demand: "Work, study; study, work."
Considering the child's physical welfare, the high school is placed at
exactly the point (fourteen to eighteen years) where it is best
calculated to destroy the delicate balance of sanity, rendering its
victims unable to stand the burden and heat of life's later day.
We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of
the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by
giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of
physical growth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical
training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular
age.
Then there are certain rules of health--"hygiene," they are
called--which should be taught to every child. Since bodies do not stay
normal if they are abused every child should have right ideas of body
care.
Most important of all, the schools must instruct children in sex hygiene
because the growth of sex consciousness is one of the most significant
of the changes which occur in the life of a child.
"But must sex hygiene be taught in the school?" you will ask.
Undoubtedly it must. If it were a choice between sex instruction in the
home or in the school, there would be no hesitation about delegating it
to the home; but since most homes neglect the discussion of sex matters,
leaving the children to gain their knowledge of sex from unreliable
sources on the streets, the choice lies between the perversion of sex as
it is taught on the streets, and the science of sex as it should be
taught in the schools.
III Play as a Means to Growth
Children's minds grow as well as their bodies--grow in retention, in
grasp, and in power. Memory work (the learning of poems, songs, and
formulas) helps to make minds more retentive, while all studies, but
particularly number work, increase mental grasp and power.
Besides body growth and mind growth all children have soul growth. They
develop human sympathy, and they are interested in esthetic things. To
supply these needs the school must give the child literature and art.
Simple these lessons must be, particularly in the elementary grades; but
there is scarcely a child who will not respond to the noble in
literature or the beautiful in art if these things are presented to him
in an understandable way.
The bodies, minds, and souls of children grow. They are all sacred. Each
child needs a normal body, an active mind, a healthy and a beautiful
soul. We dare not develop bodies at the expense of minds and souls, but
neither may we educate minds at the expense of souls and bodies--a
tendency which has been fearfully prevalent in American education.
The most valuable means of securing this all-important growth is "play,"
which Froebel said contained the germinal leaves of all later life.
Growth comes only through expression. One does not develop muscle by
watching the strong man in the circus, but by exercising. The child's
chief means of expression is through play, hence play is the child's
method of securing growth.
In their earliest infancy children play. Their frolics and antics are
really "puppy play," the product of overflowing life and animal spirits.
At this "puppy play" stage, when the child plays merely to work off
surplus energy, the most essential thing is a place to play, and the
school must meet this need by providing playgrounds.
As children grow older they turn to a more advanced type of play.
Instead of romping and frolicking individually they play in groups. It
is in these group plays that the child gets his first idea of the duty
which he owes to his fellows, his first glimmering of a social sense. In
the home and in the school he is in a subordinate position, but in the
"gang," or "set," he is as good as the next. Group play teaches
democracy. More than that, group play has a moral value. Each one must
play fair. Those who do not are ruthlessly ostracized, so children learn
to abide by the decision of the crowd. While children's plays should be
as untrammeled as possible, it is the duty of the school to stimulate
group play by suggesting new games, organizing athletic meets, getting
up interclass sports, and in other ways supervising and directing games
and sports.
In the course of the child's life play takes another form, the form of
creative work. Boys build wagons and houses; girls cook, and make dolls.
The "puppy play" of their early childhood has evolved into a form of
creative activity that sooner or later grips every human creature. We
want to plant, to build, to plan, to make. It is the creative power
within us yearning for expression, hence the well-planned school will
provide simple forms of manual training by means of which both boys and
girls will be taught to use their hands so skillfully that they may
translate an idea into a concrete product.
Civilization has been described as the art of playing. Big folks are apt
to look down on play because most of it is done by children. But listen,
big folks: When Anna plays dolls she does it in a frank, serious,
whole-souled way that you seldom imitate. There is no activity so vital
to the child as play, nor does any man succeed at his work unless he can
"play at it" with the fervor and abandon of a child.
IV Some Things Which a Child Must Learn
So much for the needs which a child has because he is a living creature.
Suppose we turn now to some other needs--the needs which arise because
the child is in a great universe and surrounded by his fellowmen.
Wherever a child lives and whatever he does he must always face certain
surrounding conditions. First among his surroundings are people. No one
except Robinson Crusoe can get away from people, and even Crusoe had his
man Friday.
Since we are compelled, whether we like it or not, to live with people,
the school must teach language (oral and written), in order that the
children may learn to tell others what they think, and may likewise
understand the thoughts of others. The better the language the more
clearly can they understand each other.
In order that children may have a proper respect for the rights of
others the school should teach ethics by means of simple stories about
people. Teachers should explain how men live in groups, and how, if
group life is to be tolerable, men must respect each other's rights.
Perhaps in the upper elementary grades, and certainly in the high
school, there should be some simple work in psychology in order that
children may know how people's minds work.
Then besides the people of the present there are the people of the past,
and, because the things which they did enable us to live as we do,
children should be taught history, particularly the history of their own
country, state, and town.
The child comes into contact, in addition to people, with the
institutions which people have constructed--the home, the school, the
state, the industrial system. Every child who grows to maturity will
participate in the activity of these institutions, hence every child
should be taught about them. In the last two years of the elementary
grades civics can be successfully taught, since even at twelve years
children are interested in the things which are happening around them.
In the high schools this work can be carried much further in the form of
social and industrial problem courses.
The most universal and by far the largest of the child's surroundings
consist of the things about him. He lives in a world, a very little
world to be sure, but to him it is great; and a knowledge of the world
comes through a study of geography. Beginning with the geography of his
native town (not with the basin of the Ganges) he can learn successively
about the geography of the county, the state, the country, and then of
the world.
Surrounding the child on every hand are plants and animals. Nature study
gives him an intelligent interest in them. As he grows older general
nature study may be subdivided into geology, botany, zoology; and the
forces of nature may be examined in astronomy, chemistry, and physics:
but most of these subjects are too specialized for the elementary
grades, and should appear, if at all, in the high schools.
There is a group of courses which belongs in every school--elementary
school as well as high school--namely, the courses which prepare
children for life activity. Growth and training in the art of living
enable children to fulfill the third function of their being--that of
doing. Every man and every woman needs work in order to live, and it is
a part of the duty of education to prepare them for that work.
First of all, as modern society has developed, every man and many women
need an income-producing trade or occupation; hence it is the duty of
the schools to provide trade and professional educations (really the
same thing under different names). No child should be permitted to leave
the schools until he is proficient in some income-giving work. The
character of the teaching must be altered to suit the locality, but the
principle is absolute.
Further, since men should not devote their entire lives to the same
task, because they require a change of occupation, the school should aim
to provide an avocation, or secondary occupation, which may occupy
leisure hours. Manual training, agriculture, art work, and civics will
supply different people with occupations for spare time.
Finally, since one of the chief duties of society is to insure a healthy
and increasingly valuable supply of human beings, no one should leave
the schools without a thorough domestic training, including training for
parenthood. While this training should be given in a measure to boys, it
should be intended primarily for girls, and should include biology,
hygiene, chemistry, dietetics, psychology, and nursing. Although the
elementary grades can provide only the simplest training along these
lines that training should be given to every future housekeeper and
mother.
V What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs
If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school
must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing
the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and
for preparing every child to do his work in life.
These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child
has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the
elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin
to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of
adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of
the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must
be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must
know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of
the American school children do, he must be reached in the first eight
school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an
opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary
school has started.
We believe that these fundamental principles of education are
sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they
will apply to places of the most divergent school needs.
VI The Educational Work of the Small Town
Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three
thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community.
In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or
before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get
must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen.
The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed
by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the
mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home
until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories.
The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children
have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes
where they receive little home training. The town affords an
unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way.
Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the
elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they
will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children.
The elementary schools in such a village must provide organized games
for the younger children and organized sports for the older ones; a
sufficient amount of physical training to insure robust bodies; careful
instruction in physiology, body hygiene, and sex hygiene; simple manual
training for the younger children; thorough preparation in the reading
and writing of English; the fundamentals of numbers; geography with
particular reference to the geographic conditions in the immediate
locality; civics and history--particularly American history; a thorough
drill in English and American literature; a minimum amount of
instruction in fine art--drawing, painting, modeling; an extensive
system of nature study, supplemented by field trips.
This course should be required of boys and girls alike. In addition to
these studies the boys in a coal-mining village should receive careful
instruction in geology, particularly in the mineralogy of the region in
which the mine is located; technical training in mining, drafting, and
shop work; and a sufficient training in agriculture to enable them to
make good kitchen gardens, since gardening is one of the chief
avocations of men in such a community.
Parallel to this special training for boys the schools should provide
for girls a thorough course in domestic science, with particular
emphasis on economical purchasing, and an education for parenthood,
including hygiene, dietetics, psychology, and nursing.
Such a course of study given in a typical mining village would tend to
make of the boys educated, trained workmen, and of the girls educated,
trained mothers. To be sure this course would not make of the boys
railroad presidents or United States senators; but even that is not a
drawback because, incredible as it may sound to many old-fashioned
ears, the vast majority of these boys will be miners and mechanics. The
question is, therefore, Shall they be good miners or bad ones? United
States senatorships bother them not a whit.
If there are, as there always will be in such a village, a few
exceptional children who desire more advanced work, the teacher can do
exactly what he does now--namely, give them special instruction.
Such an educational system as that outlined would require more training
in the teachers, and an additional outlay for tools and school-rooms,
but it would train the boys and girls of the village to live their lives
effectively.
The mine-village educational problem is rendered especially easy of
solution because the community is small in size, and because there are
only two occupations, mining and homekeeping, into which the children
go.
A similar situation may be found in most of the agricultural districts,
except that the boys take up farming instead of mining, while the girls
are called upon to participate in farm work to the extent of caring for
chickens and pigs, and sometimes for milk. In such an agricultural
community the same outline for study might apply, except that in
training for occupations boys should be taught the facts regarding soil
fertility, fruit culture, dairying, market gardening, and other
agricultural problems, while girls need instruction which will fit them
for domestic life and for parenthood.
In New York State a number of agricultural high schools giving a course
such as the one just hinted at, have met with marked success. Most
country children do not go to high school, however--although they are
doing so in increasing numbers--and hence the necessity for shaping the
elementary course along similar lines.
VII The Educational Problems of an Industrial Community
When the mining village and the farming district are replaced by the
industrial town and the city, the school problem is greatly complicated
by the crowding of many people into a small space and by the great
diversity of occupations which the people pursue. The larger the town
the worse the crowding and the greater the variety of jobs. Otherwise
the problem of education remains largely the same.
The most apparent need of the town child is a place to play, and the
plainest duty of the town elementary school is to provide play space. In
thinly settled places there is no such need. In towns and cities there
is no more imperative duty resting on the school than the furnishing of
playgrounds and gymnasiums for children. The practice of building school
houses without gymnasiums and without play spaces cannot be too strongly
condemned. It is robbing children of the chance to grow into normal
human beings.
The other side of the town problem--the question of occupations--has
been settled in Germany, and more recently in certain American cities,
by the "continuation" school, which unties the Gordian knot by cutting
it. Instead of allowing children to stop school at fourteen the
"continuation" system requires partial school attendance until they are
eighteen.
Under this system, when children reach the end of the elementary schools
they may either go on with a high school course for four years, or else
they may take a "continuation" course for four years.
For example, if a boy elects to be a carpenter he spends forty hours a
week as a carpenter's apprentice. Then for fourteen hours a week he goes
to a school where he is taught mechanical drawing, designing, the
testing of materials, and any other subjects which bear on carpentering.
The time he spends in school is credited on the time sheets of his
employer.
So at the end of four years the boy, at eighteen, has been well trained
in the practice of carpentering by working at his job, and well schooled
in its theory by taking a "continuation" course which bore directly on
his work. Thus wage-earning and education are united to produce a
well-trained man.
The school problem of the city suburb is very different from that of the
mining village, the rural community, the industrial town, or the city.
The children have space, good homes, and abundant opportunity to go
through high school and even through college. Under these conditions the
elementary grades can be directly preparatory for high school work,
since six or even seven out of ten children will go to high school.
In the city suburb there need be little specialization in the elementary
grades. The high school, with a general course and two or three special
courses, can be relied upon for all necessary specific training.
VIII Beginning with Child Needs
In the industrial town, in the city, and in the city suburb the high
school is being looked to as the place where specialized training must
be given. The trade school can succeed a little, but its effectiveness
will always be limited by the narrow technical character of its
instruction, which makes the "continuation" school generally preferable.
The high school is not a separate institution, but an integral part of
the school system. In a high school, therefore, the children should move
naturally from the studies of the elementary grades to more advanced
studies, but the purpose of both elementary and high schools is the
same--the preparation of children for living.
Children have needs which the schools are here to supply. Certain of
these needs are common to all children, and to that extent all schools
must provide similar training. Other needs, varying with the size and
character of the community, call for a like variation in the course of
study.