USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1895 > Part 16
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facility for the use of its privileges. Teachers are allowed books for schoolroom use in almost unlimited number. Cards are issued to pupils of the high schools and of the eighth and ninth grades of the grammar schools, irrespective of age. Books hereafter are to be delivered by the librarian at all the large buildings every week. For the benefit of the high schools the reference room, with an attendant in charge, will be open daily. A catalogue of suitable books is in preparation by a committee of teachers, and other plans are sug- gested for placing the library more closely in touch with the schools. If parents, teachers, and pupils will only co-operate heartily we may expect advantages to accrue in the formation of reading habits of incalculable value.
EVENING SCHOOLS.
The attendance at the evening schools for the season of 1895 has been exceptionally small. The enforcement of the rule of the Board requiring registration of pupils under eighteen years of age to be made by parent or guardian, prevented the temporary attendance of the class that have heretofore crowded into the schools for a few evenings, only to drop out after finding that attention to business was imperative. Those who have attended are mostly mature, and have exhibited an earnestness of purpose and a devotion to study that have resulted in most cases in marked progress. Our schools keep fifty evenings, the minimum required by the law. It is probable that if the course were twice as long and the pupils congregated in a single school, a larger number of students would be enrolled. In one brief term many pupils get well under way, and then are obliged to stop without having accomplished a full course in any study. A petition from the pupils in the Prescott School for an extension of the term has been granted, and the result will be watched with interest. The average attendance for 1895 has been 106, and the per capita cost $9.10 for forty-five sessions.
THE WORK OF SPECIAL TEACHERS.
DRAWING.
In June, the Supervisor of Drawing who had so efficiently conducted this department of our school work for several years resigned, and was succeeded by Mary L. Patrick, of Newton. Miss
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Patrick brings to the discharge of her duties thorough training and great enthusiasm. Her methods are those approved most heartily by the State Supervisor of Drawing. The use of drawing books has been suspended for the present, paper being substituted. This change is without detriment to the work done and in the interests of economy, - the expenses of the department being $800 less than last year.
In her report to the Superintendent Miss Patrick says : -
"' Art, if properly taught, has a great educational value apart from the subject learned. It develops accuracy of observation, reasoning from effect to cause, a power of analysis, a love of the beautiful, a tenderness and susceptibility of mind, habits of neatness, an accurate, workmanlike use of the hand, and in addition, is of value in the teaching of science and other subjects.'
" No one questions the importance of drawing as part of the public school curriculum, but the query does arise as to the best way in which to accomplish the ends mentioned in this quotation. Will not the question be partly answered when children are led to see keenly for themselves, when the drawing on the paper becomes an exact record of the picture in the pupil's mind ?
" We all agree with Ruskin when he says, ' I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw.' When the child sees the world through his own eyes, then - will he gain the power to draw independently and freely, and only then.
" With this thought in mind we ask pupils to apply their knowledge of drawing to illustrate science work and other subjects. Home sketches, showing the prin- ciples studied in school, are also encouraged, and thoughtful, intelligent work has been the result.
" But as familiarity with the best literature of the day is necessary in order to appreciate good English, just so important is it that systematic instruction in drawing should supplement the child's sketches. Therefore the course through the primary grades consists chiefly in the study of form. This is followed, in the grammar grades, by drawing in its threefold character of representation, construc- tion, and decoration. Feeling that the use of clay to emphasize form-study re- sults merely in the child's conception of the object, and that the knowledge gained is very slight, we have dropped it this year and anticipate equally good work from the classes.
" Results are not seen in a week or a month, or even a year, but as each week pupils see more fully ' the world, the beauty and the wonder, and the power, the shapes of things, their colors, lights, and shades, changes, surprises,' may we not feel that drawing in its broadest sense is being taught, and that the results that we desire will surely follow "?
MUSIC.
At the beginning of the current school year the use of the Normal System of music was extended to include the sixth grade,
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displacing the national system. This gave to the junior supervisor, Mrs. Garwood, the charge of the six lower grades, and left Mr. Hadley free to give more instruction in the upper grammar grades and in the high schools. This change has been to general advan- tage. Indeed, it was forced upon us by the growth of the schools. The facilities for instruction in music furnished by the separation of the English and Classical departments of the High School are note- worthy, and furnish another evidence of the advantages of division.
In her report to the Committee Mrs. Garwood says : -
"I am pleased to report the music study in our schools as enthusiastically pursued through the six lower grades.
"The teachers heartily responded to an invitation from me to attend a course of six lessons at the beginning of the school year. The attendance at every lesson was very gratifying, and the results of the training have been evident in the class teaching. In these lessons the teachers of advanced work have obtained a knowledge of what the classes had been studying as preparatory steps, and know- ing what had been attempted, could better proceed with present duties. The work of supervising can now be done to much better advantage. Teachers report classes as coming to them with a better knowledge, and so more able to do the grade work in music.
" The sixth grade classes have at once taken up three-voice work, intelligently and with pleasure. Where we have the Normal Reader in these grades the interest is greater and the work better. Superior material secures superior results.
" I would earnestly ask that we have more books in the fourth and fifth grades, that our time may all be used in singing, and not wasted in carrying and distribu- ting books. Then, too, the books can have better care, each child being responsi- ble for injuries received by a book when in his possession.
" The Cecilian, Book I., has been a source of pleasure and profit to the little people, as through rote songs musical appreciation and taste are cultivated.
" I would cordially invite both parents and members of the Committee to visit classes and hear the music. Their presence will encourage both pupils and teachers and stimulate to greater effort."
SEWING.
At the close of the last school year Mrs. C. M. Coffin, a teacher of sewing in our schools since its introduction and one to whom much of the credit can be given for the establishment and excellence of our present system, as well as for her faithful instruction, gave up the work for a well-earned rest. She was succeeded by Sarah I. Stanton, a lady of experience, well equipped for her duties.
With the beginning of the year, instruction in sewing was extended to the girls of the eighth grade and omitted in the fourth grade.
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Even with this change the teachers are obliged to combine classes and can give less individual instruction than is desirable. When arrangements are made to give the girls of the two upper grammar grades instruction in cooking, a return of sewing to the fourth grade and the employment of another teacher will probably be found advisable.
PHYSICAL TRAINING.
The services of a special instructor in this branch were continued till the first of June with excellent results. With the impetus thus received the regular teachers are continuing the work with enthusi- asm. The time now taken for physical exercises is 100 minutes weekly. It seems, on the whole, best to reduce this time to an hour per week and to give the remainder, at least in primary grades, to an open-air recess. In this connection attention is called to the following utterance of the Committee of Fifteen on this subject :-
" In regard to physical culture, your Committee is agreed that there should be some form of special daily exercises amounting in the aggregate to one hour each week, the same to include the main features of calisthenics, and German, Swedish, or American systems of physical training, but not to be regarded as a substitute for the old-fashioned recess, established to permit the free exercise of the pupils in the open air. Systematic physical training has for its object rather the will training than recreation, and this must not be forgotten. To go from a hard lesson to a series of calisthenic exercises is to go from one kind of will training to another. Exhaustion of the will should be followed by the caprice and wild freedom of the recess. But systematic physical exercise has its sufficient reason in its aid to a graceful use of the limbs, its development of muscles that are left unused, or rudimentary, unless called forth by special training, and for the help it gives to the teacher in the way of school discipline."
PENMANSHIP.
It seems an easy matter to teach children to make the fifty-two char- acters used in writing. They begin when they enter school and keep at it for nine years, and yet, measured by the conventional standards, the results are unsatisfactory. These results have to do with two things, - the product and the process of obtaining it. Viewed simply as a product, most of the writing obtained in our schools in former years was fairly satisfactory. It possessed the essential quality of legibility and was not always wanting in beauty. It only approximated the copperplate calligraphy of the copy-book, but it could be read easily.
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But the process which produced this writing provoked just criti- cism. It was slow, awkward, labored, unhygienic, productive of myopia, astigmatism, and spinal disorders, made by finger movements only, and unscientific generally. Hence recent efforts of teachers have been directed to the correction of the faults of position and movement. The aim has been to secure upright bodies, erect heads, and easy, free, natural movements of the hand and arm. This is approximately done during the penmanship exercises when the whole thought of the child and the entire energy of the teacher are focused on this single object. If enough of this writing were done and no other style obtruded, a habit would be formed, a method fixed, and the vexed question settled. But herein lies the whole difficulty. From the day the child enters the school till he leaves it he writes by the hour without the teacher's supervision. His thought is turned towards the subject on which he is writing. He assumes the position and the movement which seem to him easiest or most convenient. He writes with cramped hand, crooked body, turned head, and in poor form generally, and in this way, by hours of the use of a bad process, a writing habit is formed which minutes of scientifically correct exercise cannot eradicate. Hence the difficulties of teaching penmanship. Written exercises in language, geography, history, etc., cannot be suspended till the child has formed the correct writing habit, and so what appear the least important, position and move- ment, are sacrificed.
Two years ago the attempt was made to correct the evil by in- troducing a "natural-movement method of writing," disregarding for awhile the character of the product, and directing all efforts to the process. The struggle has been against the large odds of bad habits fixed by years of bad practice. The results, however, have shown that there is a natural, easy way of writing in good position and form, and that even with all the obstacles to be overcome, school children may acquire a handwriting that to its legibility shall add the advantage of rapid production without tiring the writer.
During the transition period in the middle grades the appear- ance of the writing suffers, and to an extent the written exercises. But this is to be expected where bad habits have so long prevailed.
Not all teachers are equally successful in securing the correct process. The same remark applies to the teaching of any subject. The best teachers get the best results, whatever they teach. It may
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be said, however, that there has been a general effort among teachers, and that marked improvement has been made.
The services of a supervisor, who is to give his entire time to the work, have been engaged for the remainder of the year, and it is ex- pected that advance will be made in fixing correct habits, and that satisfactory writing, produced by scientific and hygienic processes, will result.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN.
Perhaps the most notable educational event of the year is the Report of the Committee of Fifteen. Appointed in 1893 by the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Asso- ciation, this committee was designed to do, in connection with ele- mentary schools, what its now famous predecessor, the Committee of Ten, has done for secondary education.
The committee was composed of educational experts, carefully selected from all parts of the country. Probably no abler or more representative body of men could have been secured for the work they were to do. The virtual head of the committee and the author of the principal part of its report was the Hon. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, by common consent without a peer in whatever concerns the public-school system of the country. His associates were principally school superintendents of large cities, life-long students of educational problems, some radical, some con- servative, some occupying the safe middle ground. The careful, deliberate, unanimous conclusions of such a body of men have great weight. The report on the whole is conservative, and not acceptable to the extremists. This is its strongest recommendation. It should be carefully read by every school-man as showing the trend of educa- tional thought and the conclusions of experts on the three important subjects,-" The Training of Teachers," "The Correlation of Studies in Elementary Education," and "The Organization of City School Systems." So valuable do I regard this document that I wish to make the entire volume a part of this report, and to that end have provided each member of the Board with a copy. I cannot refrain from making a few quotations from it, somewhat at random. They give a few of the profitable suggestions with which the report is filled.
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" Your Committee would sum up these considerations by saying that language rightfully forms the center of instruction in the elementary school, but that progress in methods of teaching is to be made, as hitherto, chiefly by laying more stress on the internal side of the word, its meaning; using better graded steps to build up the chain of experience or the train of thought that the word expresses.
" The reading and study of fine selections in prose and verse furnish the chief æsthetic training of the elementary school. But this should be re-enforced by some study of photographic or other reproductions of the world's great masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, and painting. The frequent sight of these reproductions is good ; the attempt to copy or sketch them with the pencil is better; best of all is an æsthetic lesson on their composition, attempting to describe in words the idea of the whole that gives the work its organic unity, and the devices adopted by the artist to reflect this idea in the details and re-enforce its strength. The æsthetic taste of teacher and pupil can be cultivated by such exercises, and once set on the road of development this taste may improve through life.
" Your Committee recommends that reading be given at least one lesson each day for the entire eight years, it being understood, however, that there shall be two or more lessons each day in reading in the first and second years, in which the recitation is necessarily very short, because of the inability of the pupil to give continued close attention, and because he has little power of applying him- self to the work of preparing lessons by himself. In the first three years the reading should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style, but selections from the classics of the language in prose and in poetry shall be read to the pupil from time to time, and discussions made of such features of the selections read as may interest the pupils. After the third year your Committee believes that the reading lesson should be given to selections from classic authors of English, and that the work of the recitation should be divided between (a) the elocution, (b) the grammatical peculiarities of the language, including spelling, definitions, syn- tactical construction, punctuation, and figures of prosody, and (c) the literary contents, including the main and accessory ideas, the emotions painted, the deeds described, the devices of style to produce a strong impression on the reader. Your Committee wishes to lay emphasis on the importance of the last item, -- that of literary study, -- which should consume more and more of the time of the recitation from grade to grade in the period from the fourth to the eighth year. In the fourth year and previously the first item -that of elocution, to secure distinct enunciation and correct pronunciation-should be most promi- nent. In the fifth and sixth years the second item-that of spelling, defining, and punctuation-should predominate slightly over the other two items. In the years from the fifth to the eighth there should be some reading of entire stories, such as Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, Rip Van Winkle, The Lady of the Lake, Hiawatha, and similar stories adapted in style and subject-matter to the capacity of the pupils. An hour should be devoted each week to conversations on the salient points of the story, its literary and ethical bearings.
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" The class exercise or recitation is taken up with examining and criticising the pupil's oral statements of what he has learned, especial care being taken to secure the pupil's explanation of it in his own words. This requires paraphrases and definitions of the new words and phrases used in technical and literary senses, with a view to insure the addition to the mind of the new ideas corresponding to the new words. The misunderstandings are corrected and the pupil set on the way to use more critical alertness in the preparation of his succeeding lessons. The pupil learns as much by the recitations of his fellow-pupils as he learns from the teacher, but not the same things. He sees in the imperfect statements of his classmates that they apprehended the lesson with different presuppositions and consequently have seen some phases of the subject that escaped his observation, while they in turn have missed points which he had noticed quite readily. These different points of view become more or less his own, and he may be said to grow by adding to his own mind the minds of others.
" With one teacher who supervises the study and hears all the recitations, there is a much better opportunity to cultivate the two kinds of attention. The teacher divides his pupils into two classes and hears one recite while the other class prepares for the next lesson. The pupils reciting are required to pay strict attention to the one of their number who is explaining the point assigned him by the teacher-they are to be on the alert to notice any mistakes of statement or omissions of important data, they are at the same time to pay close attention to the remarks of the teacher. This is one kind of attention, which may be called associated critical attention. The pupils engaged in the preparation of the next lesson are busy, each one by himself, studying the book and mastering its facts and ideas, and comparing them one with another, and making the effort to become oblivious of their fellow-pupils, the recitation going on, and the teacher. This is another kind of attention, which is not associated, but an individual effort to master for one's self without aid a prescribed task and to resist all distracting influences. These two disciplines in attention are the best formal training that the school affords.
" A frequent error is the practice of making every recitation a language lesson, and interrupting the arithmetic, geography, history, literature, or whatever it may be, by calling the pupil's attention abruptly to something in his forms of expression, his pronunciation, or to some faulty use of English; thus turning the entire system of school work into a series of grammar excercises and weakening the power of continuous thought on the objective contents of the several branches, by creating a pernicious habit of self-consciousness in the matter of verbal expres- sion. While your Committee would not venture to say that there should not be some degree of attention to the verbal expression in all lessons, it is of the opinion that it should be limited to criticism of the recitation for its want of technical accuracy. The technical words in each branch should be discussed until the pupil is familiar with their full force. The faulty English should be criticised as showing confusion of thought or memory, and should be corrected in this sense. But solecisms of speech should be silently noted by the teacher for discussion in the regular language lesson.
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"It is of course understood by your Committee that the substantial moral training of the school is performed by the discipline rather than by the instruction in ethical theory. The child is trained to be regular and punctual, and to restrain his desire to talk and whisper - in these things gaining self-control day by day. The essence of moral behavior is self-control. The school teaches good behavior. The intercourse of a pupil with his fellows without evil words or violent actions is insisted on and secured. The higher moral qualities of truth- telling and sincerity are taught in every class exercise that lays stress on accuracy of statement.
" The history of English Literature is another study of the secondary school. It is very properly placed beyond the elementary school, for as taught it consists largely of the biographies of men of letters. The pupils who have not yet learned any great work of literature should not be pestered with literary biography, for at that stage the greatness of the men of letters cannot be seen. Plutarch makes great biographies because he shows heroic struggles and great deeds. The heroism of artists and poets consists in sacrificing all for the sake of their creations. The majority of them come off sadly at the hands of the biographer, for the reason that the very sides of their lives are described which they had slighted and neglected for the sake of the Muses. The prophets of Israel did not live in city palaces, but in caves; they did not wear fine raiment, nor feed sumptuously, nor conform to the codes of polite society. They were no courtiers when they approached the king. They neglected all the other institutions - family, productive industry and state -for the sake of one, the church, and even that not the established ceremonial of the people, but a higher and more direct communing with Jehovah. So with artists and men of letters it is more or less the case that the institutional side of their lives is neglected, or unsymmetrical, or if this is not the case it will be found prosaic and uneventful, throwing no light on their matchless productions.
" For these reasons should not the present use of literary biography as it exists in secondary schools, and is gradually making its way into elementary schools, be discouraged, and the time now given to it devoted to the study of literary works of art? It will be admitted that the exposure of the foibles of artists has an immoral tendency on youth : for example, one affects to be a poet, and justifies laxity and self-indulgence through the example of Byron. Those who support this view hold that we should not dignify the immoral and defective side of life by making it a branch of study in school.
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