USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Attleboro > Reports of town officers of the town of Attleborough 1886 > Part 5
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school life, where the school work depends not so much on the length of time spent in study by the pupil as on the frequency of repetition.
Second; As to the matter of economy, I believe it to be the worst kind of a "penny wise and pound foolish" policy. It has been well said that "cheap schools are pretty uni- formly poor schools," while good schools in the nature of things must be costly schools. If economy is to strike anywhere the last place should be the salary of the teach- ers, for the poorest of cheap things is a cheap and ineffic- ient teacher. And above all it should not strike the pri- mary teachers the hardest, as it did this year, for if there is any one place more than another where we do not wish a bungler it is in the primary schools. The time has passed, (let us hope, never to return), when "anybody can teach a primary school", and inexperienced girls can gain their experience among the youngest children, because there no one can defy their authority. There is no place in the whole line of school work where there is more need of real native teaching ability, extended experience, and full acquaintance with and study of methods, and there are few places so hard to fill satisfactorily. We have been able to retain this year those who have so efficiently served us, but good primary teachers are in too great demand for us to hope to do so in the future if the reduction be con- tinued.
To meet some of the points suggested under this head, I recommend the adoption during the next term, of a scale of definite annual salaries, not dependent on the number of weeks in the school year. I also recommend the adoption of the following divisions of the school year: Fall term, Sept. 13 to Dec. 17 .- 14 weeks.
Winter term, Dec. 29 to March 23-12 weeks.
Spring term, April 4 to June 24 -- 12 weeks.
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Schools to be closed Thanksgiving day and the day following.
This arrangement of terms puts off the opening of the schools until the hot weather of September has passed, and gives three terms of nearly equal length, separated by ten days' vacation in December and March.
ATTENDANCE.
The attendance of the schools, as a whole, was much reduced in consequence of the enforcement of the vacci- nation law, near the middle of the Fall term. As usual, much of the absence and tardiness shown by each school is caused by a few families, where the parents have so little interest in the child's welfare, or exercise so little control over him, that the most trivial matters are allowed to interfere with his school duties. If parents generally could realize how much harm even one day's absence does, our attendance would be much improved.
Every teacher is expected to require a written excuse for each case of absence or tardiness, or a verbal excuse by the parent, and constant efforts are made to reduce the number of cases, in some schools with very gratifying results.
DISCIPLINE.
In their discipline, our schools are quite satisfactory. In none of them is good order sought for as an end in itself. It is considered rather as a means to be used in training the pupils to exercise self-control, industry and manliness, and in securing the best work in study and recitation. Much freedom is given the pupil as long as it is not abused, and the child is made to feel his own responsibility for the order of the room. In very few
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schools have I found a lack of the order necessary for good wook. The teachers seem to have good ideas in regard to discipline and to use right methods in carrying them into execution.
The point in which there appears to be the greatest room for improvement, is the use of corporal punishment. This punishment should be within the power of every teacher, yet its frequent use is a sure sign of weakness in the user. It should be resorted to only when it is un- questionably the punishment best suited to the particular case in hand. It should never be applied on the impulse of the moment, but only after mature deliberation, when whatever passion has been caused by the offence has had time to cool. It should be administered in private, after a plain, full, dispassionate statement to the child, of the grounds on which it is given. If it were always applied with the deliberation suggested, I feel that the total for the year would be much reduced. The wisest teachers usually punish the least, perhaps because they use their wisdom in anticipating cases that might require punish. ment, and do not allow them to occur. Some teachers always have few cases, yet their pupils are invariably found most industrious and orderly and hold the greatest respect for and attachment to the teacher? The best gov- erned school seems to govern itself and we can secure such schools by obtaining and keeping teachers who get the strongest hold on their pupils affections and exercise the deepest influence on his nature.
There is one important thing of which we need more, that is, a strong home influence. There should be no dis- cussion of teachers or their discipline in the presence of children. Every expression of disrespect for the teacher materially diminishes his influence on the child.
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Often a child that has come under the correction of the teacher reports the case at home, skillfully omitting all points unfavorable to himself, and the teacher is con- demned, unheard by the parents and the child encouraged in his course. It may be a case where the teacher has actcd hastily or from a mistaken impression, but the course of the parents has merely intensified the trouble, when a few words to the teacher, spoken without show of passion, would have set matters right. Every teacher fit to hold his position is glad to know of any injustice that he has done and ready to make even more full reparation than he would ask of a pupil. A fair minded parent whose child is in trouble will withhold any. expression in regard to the matter, until he has heard the teacher's view of the case. If he comes in a fair spirit, without anger, a parent will be welcomed by the teacher. Such visits are best when made out of school hours. When tempted to criticise one should remember that the teacher has not merely one child to study and control, but from thirty to fifty or even sixty and that they are under his control and influence only one third of their waking hours, on five days of the weekly seven. He certainly deserves from the parent not criti- cism, but sympathy and support.
REPORT CARDS.
To enable the parent to inform himself of his child's behavior and progress in school, reports are sent home twice a term and the parent or guardian is asked to care- fully examine and sign them. They show the teacher's judgment of his advancement and are sent home to give the parents opportunity to commend the faithful and ad- monish the indolent. In too many cases they are carefully shielded from the notice of the sterner parent or are signed
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without examination. To promote careful examination they will hereafter be sent out with unvarying regularity, on the Monday following the first day of alternate months except at the end of the year, in June, when they will be sent out Monday of the last week of school. The dates on which they should appear the coming year are May 10, June 21, Nov. I, Jan. 3, 1887, March 7, May 2 and June 20. If they do not appear promptly on those dates, the parents should ask for them.
COURSE OF STUDY.
The outline of a course of study laid out last year, has been in use during the year. Though considerably in advance of what our schools were then doing, the teachers have faithfully tried to bring the schools up to it and have made much progress toward that end. I had hoped to have it in a revised and amplified form ready for publication with this report, but to so revise it, that it shall be fully adapted to the needs of our schools, to fill in the details and suggestions that shall ensure its systematic and wise application, and to incorporate the wisest of the ad- vances that have been made in instruction in late years, is a work that demands a closer and more extended study of our schools and more time and labor than the duties of my office have yet allowed me. I have therefore postponed its publication until it can be presented in a more satisfactory form. In my opinion, something should be done towards providing a course of general instruction in the Natural Sciences in the lower schools; also a course of Study of Authors in a general way, extending through grades VIII and IX and the High School. I have had the subject un- der consideration and hope to bring forward a plan the coming term.
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SANITARY CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS.
The hygienic conditions that surround the pupil while he is at work, demand constant and careful study and no small amount of time and thought has been given the mat- ter by your Superintendent.
The condition of the outbuildings has been frequently investigated, the attention of the teachers especially di- rected to their supervision and, in some cases, the janitors directed to use more care for them. As a whole they are now kept in excellent condition. In some cases a coat of paint on the interior would aid very much in keeping the buildings neat. Two schools need another apartment, as both sexes now use one in common.
To secure proper heating of the school-rooms, a ther- mometer has been placed in each, and the teachers are expected to consult it frequently and not allow the tem- perature to remain above 70 degrees. If they find the temperature below 60 degrees at 8.45 A. M., they are to record it and notify the janitor and the Superintendent, dismissing school unless it improves. Most of the rooms are regularly warm at 8.45 A. M., but the apparatus at the East High school, and at Park street building are inade- quate, while one room at the Falls school, and the west rooms in the High school buildings seem to need more radiating surface.
One of the most frequent hygienic faults is poor venti- lation. Very few of the rooms can be kept properly ven- tilated without the use of the windows, and that method is very dangerous. In a number of the most crowded rooms, trial has been made for two terms, of a simple de- vice to allow the use of the windows without the draft striking the children. It consists in fastening a six inch
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board to the window-sill about half an inch inside of the sash. When the windows are raised nearly to the top of this board the air comes in at the bottom and between the sashes, but the current is turned toward the ceiling, incon- veniencing no one. The improvement in the rooms where it has been applied, is marked, and it has proved a great relief. I recommend that it be applied to all the school rooms.
The matter of light I have not yet had time to carefully investigate, but I think it sufficient in nearly all the rooms. In a number of cases, however, the desks are so arranged that the light comes to the pupils from the wrong direct- ion.
CARE OF SCHOOL GROUNDS.
The power to refine its pupils, increase their self-respect and soften their manners is an indispensable clement of a good school, and for its attainment the teacher needs every assistance that can be given. With this in view many school rooms have their walls tastily adorned by pictures and their windows filled with plants. Last Spring the teachers and pupils in one of our schools tried the experi- ment of beautifying the grounds by means of flower gar- dens. It proved a great success. There was no trespass- ing on the part of the pupils, and they seemed to enjoy the added beauty of the school-grounds and to feel an in- creased interest and pride in their school. I recommend that all the school yards be thoroughly raked and cleaned from stones and litter, and that it be the duty of all jani- tors in future to care for the neatness of the grounds as well as the interior of the building, and that the schools be encouraged in any attempt to beautify their room or grounds. It is mentioned at this time chiefly as a matter
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of advertisement that the public may be prepared for a generous response if they are met by private appeals for substantial encouragement of the work.
MUSIC.
The department of music under the supervision of Mr. H. J. Whittemore, has been very efficiently conducted, and the results are increasingly satisfactory, testifying to the great excellence of the instructors, Mr. Whittemore and his daughter. I herewith present his report.
H. M. MAXSON, Superintendent of Schools.
It gives me pleasure to be able to report a fair degree of im- provement in all the schools, a very good advancement in many. The teachers, with scarcely an exception, heartily co-operate and faithfully drill on the lesson assigned.
Special care has been given to the primaries, as the results obtained in the higher grades depend largely upon the kind of work done in the lower classes. In the Intermediate classes, considerable attention has been given to the reading of music. In the out-lying schools the im- provement is quite marked, and in some of them two-part songs have been attempted with fair success. In the High and Grammar the practice of four-part (soprano, alto, tenor and base) choruses has been introduced with the object in view that when the pupils leave school they may be prepared to sing in the church choirs, musical so- cieties, etc.
I may be pardoned, in closing this brief report, in saying that I know of no other place outside of the cities where vocal music has been so well sustained and appreciated by the School Committee, Su- perintendent of Schools and Teachers.
Respectfully submitted,
H. J. WHITTEMORE,
Supervisor and Teacher of Music.
MARY E. WHITTEMORE,
Asst. Teacher.
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ANNUAL REPORT.
CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS.
Of the schools as a whole it may be said that they are in excellent condition; without exception the teachers are doing earnest, intelligent and conscientious work. It would be a pleasure to all concerned in the care and man- agement of the schools, if every tax payer and voter could become familiar with their work. For those who cannot visit them, an outline of what our schools are doing is here given. The most important part of the system, the one which contains the most children, which demands the most attention from the Superintendent, and which shows the most improvement in methods is
THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
Since few parents have any idea of the great change that has taken place in these schools, their work and methods are presented quite fully. The first aim of the teaching is to make the child feel at home, free and natural in his thoughts, and fearless in his expression of them in recitation. The second is, to make use of that inborn curiosity and that love for play, which are the in- heritance of every healthy child, in leading him along the path of knowledge. His impulsiveness and activity are used as aids to help him in his course. The children are no longer required to sit up in regular rows, still and prim, while they busy themselves with the monotonous work of pricking out their a, b, c, with a pin. The child's first exercises now, are intended to remove his timidity, to create a trust in his teacher, and develope a fondness for school life. He is allowed much freedom of motion, his exercises are calculated to appeal to his childish nature and when not busy in recitation he is given "busy work" with pegs, splints, bits of colored paper, shells,
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pictures, blocks, wooden beads, etc., which develop his ideas of order, number, form and language under the guise of amusement. He does not now begin his reading by learning the alphabet. He is not even shown a word until he has been interested in a picture or object which suggests that word. When his interest in the object has been aroused, the word is written on the board and fixed as a whole, in the child's mind. Another object presented teaches another word. His attention is soon called to the little words, "a" and "the" which are so commonly spoken with the names of things and their written forms are taught. He notices the qualities of objects and learns to read the forms "a black cat", "a white hat", &c. Being led to talk, he says, "The cat is white"; the sentence is written on the board and he is taught the word "is". So, word after word is developed from objects, or the child's talk about them and is taught while his mind is interest- ed in that which suggests it. From the first he reads words and sentences, and not until he has learned quite a number of words is his attention called to the letters of which the words are formed. Being led to pronounce a word slowly, he sees that it is made up of parts, and is gradually taught the most common sound of each letter, then he spells the word by sound and finally, is able to recognize new words by simply spelling them this way, the silent letters and the length of the vowels being in- dicated by the teacher by marks which the child under- stands.
In all his oral reading he is taught to read as he speaks- naturally, and in the primaries there is heard very little of the monotonous, "school-boy" style of reading. Indeed there is quite a contrast in this particular, between the primaries and some of the higher grades whose children
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have not had the benefit of this thorough primary train- ing.
The words are always first presented in writing instead of print, the child finding little difficulty afterward in rec- ognizing the printed form. He is no longer taught to print. As he is to use writing only in his after life, he is taught writing from the very beginning. Very early in his course he is induced to imitate on his slate the words his teacher has written and thus learns to write the words he has learned. I have been shown very good writing by children who have been in the school but one term, who could not read a word when they entered. His exercises are short and great care is taken to give them variety and interest. Every word he learns means something to him and he uses hands as well as eyes in fixing his lesson.
Thus by gradual, easy steps, by natural methods, the child is led up through the chart to the first reader. By the aid of supplementary reading he is taken through a number of first readers, then through several of the sec - ond, and on up the list in a similar way.
In teaching numbers an equally great change has been made. The child no longer spends weeks in learning to read and write numbers running into millions, billions, etc., and then other tedious weeks in adding long columns of meaningless figures, before he can go on to subtraction and the other operations. He has learned much Arith- metic nowadays before he can read to millions, and has done much multiplying and dividing before he can do large " sums " in addition. From the beginning he uses the four processes in his work-learning to add, subtract, multiply and divide the units contained in each number- before he goes on to the next. He sees the facts ex- pressed by objects before he attempts to express them by
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words, and learns all the facts about one number before he goes to the next. After the thorough drill he has re- ceived in the first grade, on numbers to ten, he is pre- pared to take up in the second grade the use of written number work, expressing on the board or slate what has been worked out by objects, and so goes on to the num- ber thirty, doing more and more written work with cach step. He does not commit to memory those wearisome " tables," which mean so little to a child. He learns the facts as he comes to them, and has no need of a table. To show some of the methods used I have added to the report a description of the work in Grade I by a teacher. (See Appendix.)
In addition to these two fundamentals, reading and numbers, there is an almost infinite variety of exercises and games invented by the teacher to teach the child to observe accurately and express what he sees in correct language, and to prepare him for work in the higher grades. There is also oral instruction to teach him how to care for his body, and to inculcate truthfulness, obedi- ence, kindness, politeness, cleanliness, love for parents, and other virtues. A successful primary teacher, there- fore, must, in these days, possess an unusual amount of tact to always keep the children busy, and yet order all her ways so as to make each game and play assist in the attainment of some definite end in the education of the child. In school work, as in other matters, to build well we must lay a good foundation. To illustrate the variety of work of this nature, I include in the Appendix a de- scription by one of the teachers.
INTERMEDIATE AND GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
While the changes in the other grades have not been so radical, there has been much advancement in the matter
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of grading, and in the methods of instruction. The pol- icy of consolidation followed in the case of the higher grades has proved beneficial to the pupils and the schools. Where one or two pupils form a class, they take the time of the teacher that could be better spent on the lower classes, and at the same time the ambition of the pupils feels none of the stimulus of rivalry, and he does not get the thorough instruction that can be given where the teacher has fewer classes but larger ones. It is far better for the children, and is a relief to the school for the pupils in the district schools to join the nearest village schools as soon as they reach Grade VIII. There are now two classes in Grade IX., one at Attleboro, the other at North Attleboro, both doing the same work. Both have taken the same examinations, as they completed History and Physiology, the questions being prepared by the Superin- tendent. During the coming term they will be examined in like manner in all their studies. I recommend that all in these two classes who are able to maintain the standard now required be granted a diploma on finishing the ninth grade, and that this diploma shall admit the pupil to the High School without further examination. By another year the grades at the Falls school will probably be brought up so that the same provision can be extended to the class there.
THE HIGH SCHOOLS.
During the year, the course of study in the High Schools has been revised, so that there are now practi- cally three courses; a four-years classical course to fit pupils for college; a four-years general course, and a three- years English course, for those who do not wish to take Latin or who wish to spend only three years in the school. The change in the course has put into the first year, the
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study of advanced Arithmetic and Book-keeping and an extended study of Composition and Rhetoric and drill in writing good English, so that if a pupil can attend but one year he will still have a very profitable year's work.
All who do not intend to go to a higher school after graduation, are recommended to take the general course as the one best calculated to give them a sound education, since it contains all the studies of the English course and carries along with them the study of a language, Latin or French. With the liberty of choice now given, it is felt that the course should appeal to all.
In the work of the schools, while it is intended to meet the reasonable demand, that no child should be compelled to leave town in order to prepare for college, the fact is recognized that the large majority of the pupils go no farther than the High school, and the first place is there- fore given to the English branches.
As far as possible, the methods of instruction used are based on the principle, that the pupils should not be con- tent with reading how a thing should be done, but he should do it; that he should not passively take the de- ductions of some one else, but under competent direction, work them out himself. In Rhetoric, Composition, Lit- erature and Geometry the pupil investigates, experiments and draws conclusions for himself. He learns by doing.
In Science, however, our teachers have been obliged, from lack of conveniences, to stop far short of what should be done. The true aim of instruction in Science is the training the perceptive and reasoning faculties so that the pupil may be able to make his own observations and draw his own deductions and may be stimulated to do this after he has left his school. Accordingly, by the newer methods of instruction, at the very beginning of
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his study he becomes an investigator. He performs cer- tain experiments, carefully observes the results an 1 records his observations, drawing his own conclusions, the teacher superintending his work, and when necessary directing his attention or his reasoning towards particulars that he has neglected, leading him to discover one fact after another, and to work out for himself the laws of the science he is studying. Thus his senses are trained to observe, he is incited to investigate and encouraged to deduce conclusions from what he sees, and both mind and hand are trained.
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