USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Reading > Town of Reading Massachusetts annual report 1922 > Part 13
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"We hear much in these later days about the rights of men-and of women-and all this is hopeful and commendable. But there are still too few to proclaim the rights of children. And yet, children also possess rights, inalienable and irrevocable. It is the right of children and youth to grow and develop; to acquire correct habits, physical, intellectual, and spiritual; and under the most competent guidance to be educated to the highest possible extent compatible with their capacities and endow- ments; to the end that as individuals and members of society they may occupy those stations in life for which they are best fitted and qualified by nature and by training, and that therein they may discharge duties, perform services, and enjoy the blessings of liberty more abundantly than they could in any other place or sphere in life."
New Schoolhouse
Attention is called to the fact that the buildings now occupied by school children are getting crowded in many schools. In the near future,
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we shall be compelled to ask for a new building. Before doing that, we shall have to hire temporary rooms in different parts of the town. The town is growing in widely separated sections and it is going to be some- what difficult to locate a single building to accommodate all the pupila. The committee has had the matter under consideration for some time.
The terms of Leone F. Quimby and Walter S. Parker expire in Feb- ruary, 1923. These two positions as members of the School Committee are to be filled by election at the annual town meeting in March.
The appropriations asked for are $141,000, General Account; $5,800, Agricultural Account; $500, Tuition to State Industrial Schools.
For the School Committee:
WALTER S. PARKER, Chairman ELIZABETH H. BROWN HENRY Q. MILLETT, JESSE W. MORTON LEONE F. QUIMBY IDA A. YOUNG
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REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, 1922
To the Honorable, the School Committee of Reading, Mass .:
I beg leave to submit herewith my report of the work of Reading schools for the year nineteen hundred twenty-two. This is the twenty- ninth annual report since the office of Superintendent of Schools was established and my tenth annual report to you.
Trend of the Decade, 1913-1923
A backward glance may help us to understand more clearly our present situation' and aid us in guiding future developments. Some out- standing features to be noticed are the frequency of changes in our teaching force; the adoption of a salary schedule and the advancement of salaries; the increased number of classrooms required to accommodate a steadily growing school population; the reorganization of the old eight- year Primary-Grammar School and four-year High School into a six-year Elementary School, two-year Junior High School and four-year High School (somewhat modified) ; new subjects introduced and reorganization and expansion of old ones.
Changes in Personnel, 1913-1923
My report for 1913 says: "The large percentage of new teachers is one of the most striking features of the present situation. Of the twelve teachers in the High School, eight, including the Principal, were new to this school in September. Six of the eight were fresh from college with- out previous teaching experience." In the grades below the High School "there were six new teachers in twenty-four." For the year 1922 in the High School, there were six new teachers among eighteen; in the Junior High School, three new teachers out of thirteen; and in the Elementary Schools, one new teacher in twenty-four. There is not a single teacher now in the High School or in the Lowell Street School that was employed there in 1913; three are all that remain among seventeen at the Highland School (thirteen Junior High School and four Elementary) ; there is one left at the Center School, the Prospect Street School and the Chestnut Hill School, respectively, and three at the Union Street School. None of the supervisory or special teachers are the same as in 1913. At that time Supervisors of Music, Drawing and Penmanship were employed. We have the same number of Supervisory Officers now but a Director of Standards and Guidance has superseded the Supervisor of Penmanship. In 1913 we had one special teacher of Manual Training (Highland School) and one of Sewing. There have been added to these during the past ten
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years: A teacher of Manual Training (High School), a teacher of Cooking (Grouard House), a teacher of Agriculture (High School), three teachers of Physical Training: one for Junior High School, one for High School boys, and one for High School girls. The two latter devote about half their time to teaching other branches. There has also been added a School Nurse and a High School Principal. In 1913 one clerk was em- ployed for the Superintendent of Schools. At present two additional clerks are in service, one for the Principal of the High School and one for the Principal of the Junior High School. In 1913 we had an Attendance Officer and a School Physician. The duties of Attendance Officer have been assumed by the Dean of Girls of the High School who, in addition to advising and disciplining girls, superintends the School-Committee accounts and records and the High School lunch, and teaches classes in Business Practice. There has been a change also in School Physician. The number of Janitors remains the same as in 1913. At the High School and Highland School the same persons are still in service. The other janitors have been changed. The Lowell Street and Prospect Street Schools are now cared for by one man and an additional janitor (part- time) is employed to care for the Grouard House.
Salaries of Teachers, 1913-1923
The most important factor in increasing the frequency in changes in teachers has undoubtedly been the payment of lower salaries than have been offered to many of our teachers by competing towns and cities. Fortunately not all who have received offers of higher salaries to go else- where have accepted. The lowest salary paid a teacher for full-time serv- ice in 1913 was $450; the highest salary paid in primary grades was $575. Now the minimum is $1,000 and the maximum $1,400. In grades seven and eight the highest salary paid in 1913 was $700; now it is $1,500. In the High School the lowest was then $550, the highest $900; now the minimum is $1,300 and the maximum $1,800. During this period-especially during the past five years-teachers' salaries have increased in similar propor- tions to the increases in Reading throughout the United States and Canada. While the wages of common unskilled as well as skilled labor soared to very abnormal heights during the war, the salaries of teachers advanced more gradually and have shown thus far no marked tendency to decline. In fact, numerous instances have been reported recently in which further increases have been made or are implied in new salary schedules adopted to take effect in the near future.
A considerable tendency is manifested towards equalizing the sal- aries paid in different grades. As a step in this direction the salaries of - Elementary-School teachers have been advanced generally much more ' than the salaries of High-School teachers .. Nearly all towns have adopted salary schedules with a uniform minimum, maximum and annual increase. Recognition of professional study by granting a specified increase of salary for the completion of a prescribed number of semester hours of normal school or college work is a common feature of salary schedules and
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a practice that is on the increase. It has not been adopted in Reading, however, but has much to commend it. In 1913, Reading ranked low among towns of its size in the scale of teachers' salaries-especially in salaries of teachers in grades below the High School. Consequently other towns were constantly "skimming the cream" and taking it elsewhere, Today Reading stands a little higher relatively: Our teachers' salaries are now about the median paid in towns of our size throughout the state. A member of our School Committee who has investigated the matter stated recently to the Town Finance Committee that, among the nineteen towns nearest in size to Reading, six towns paid somewhat higher salaries than Reading, seven towns paid slightly lower salaries and the remainder prac- tically the same as Reading. It appears therefore that Reading is pay- ing no higher salaries than necessary to maintain the quality of its teach- ing force at present standards.
Reorganization and Increased Number of Schoolrooms, 1913-1923
In 1913 there were eighteen schoolrooms in use for the first six grades Six new rooms have been added since: Two at the Lowell Street school,. two at the Prospect Street school, one at the Chestnut Hill school and one at the Center school. When these rooms became available a reorganiza- tion of the whole system was effected. The four district Primary Schools: Center, Prospect Street, Lowell Street, and Chestnut Hill were organized as Elementary Schools, comprised of grades one to six inclusive; the seventh and eighth grades in the Highland School were organized as a central Intermediate or Junior High School; and the High School was modified as required to harmonize with the plans for the grades below it. About this time the Grouard House was moved to a lot adjacent to the Highland School and the "Reading Home-making School" was organ- ized in which pupils from the Junior High School and from the Senior High School are taught cooking, sewing, home nursing, and other branches of Domestic Science and Arts. Also a Health Center and Dental Clinic are carried on here by the local Red Cross and other agencies.
Recently owing to the extremely crowded condition of the Highland School, Junior High School classes in French have recited at the Grouard House. Also pupils from the fifth and sixth grades of the Elementary Schools go to the Grouard House for instruction in sewing.
New Subjects and Courses, 1913-1923
Only three new subjects of study have been introduced into the Pro- gram of Studies of the Reading Public Schools in the past ten years, namely: Cooking, Spanish, and Agriculture. All the other subjects now taught were to be found in the Schools in some form, often in rather meager proportions, however, previous to 1913. While several subjects have been greatly expanded both in subject matter and in time allot- ments other subjects have been considerably curtailed. The adoption of the longer school day, however, in both the Junior High School and the Senior High School afforded the necessary time in which to provide new
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educational advantages to our pupils without unduly curtailing anything that they already had. In some instances the simpler elements of subjects taught previously in the High School only, such as French, Business Prac- tice, and Typewriting, were introduced into the Junior High School; in other cases more advanced aspects of subjects previously confined to the Grammar School, such as Manual Training, Physical Training, Personal Hygiene, and Community Civics have been carried forward into the High School; also in both Junior High School and Senior High School a judi- cious arrangement of electives has enabled pupils to pursue certain pre- ferred subjects over longer periods so that they gain a high degree of proficiency in one or two major subjects instead of the more superficial knowledge that must necessarily characterize the results of a greater variety of shorter courses. For example, a pupil entering the Junior High School is privileged if his parents so elect to pursue any of the following subjects continuously for six years: Mathematics (other than Arithmetic), French, Spanish, Science, History, Commercial Branches, Manual Training, Household Arts, English and Physical Training continuously, and cer- tain courses in History, Civics, and Hygiene are required of all. pupils but other subjects may be elected as they contribute to the major pur- poses of the pupil in his school course. The principal subjects that have been expanded in the past ten years into longer courses are as follows: (Figures in parenthesis show longest period offered)
1. Commercial Branches: including Business Practice (3 yrs.) ; Typewriting (6 yrs.); Shorthand (3 yrs.); Bookkeeping (3 yrs.) ; Office Practice (1 yr.) and Commercial English (2 yrs.).
2. Modern Foreign Languages: consisting of French (6 yrs.) ; Spanish (6 yrs.) ; German (4 yrs.).
3. Manual Training for Boys (6 yrs.) mostly wood working but affording some opportunities for printing (Junior High School 2 yrs.) and for gardening and other manual arts.
4. Household Arts for Girls (6 yrs.) including Cooking, Sewing, Home Nursing and other arts of caring for a real house (Grouard House, School of Homemaking).
5. Science: includes General Science (2 yrs. in the Junior High School) and Applied Biology (1 yr.) ; Applied Physics and Chemistry (1 yr.); General Chemistry (1 yr.); Analytical Chemistry (1 yr.) and College-Preparatory Physics (1 yr.) in the Senior High School.
6. Hygiene: this includes health teaching throughout the system, health inspection by School Physician and Nurse, special classes for little mothers (nurse girls) and Home Nursing, and Physical Training carried on by professionally trained teachers.
The college preparatory courses in English, Latin, Mathematics and History were fully developed previous to 1913 but have been strength- ened to keep pace with the increasing demands for college entrance. Any pupil with an intelligence quotient sufficiently high for college en-
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trance can obtain at Reading High School all that is necessary to pre- pare him for admission to any college. The variety of subjects offered, the length of time allotted to them and the quality of the instruction given by the teachers are each and all sufficient for the purposes of ade- quate preparation for admission to any college. A few subjects like Greek, English History and Advanced Physiology have been omitted be- cause an insufficient number of pupils have chosen these courses to warrant the formation of classes. They can be restored at any time if there is sufficient demand for them.
Broadening Scope of School Functions and Responsibilities
To "bring up a child in the way he should go" has been regarded from time immemorial as a parental function. But as patriarchal au- thority has declined and the bulk of human knowledge increased the tendency to organize schools has developed and more and more the schools have superseded the home as the chief agency in training the child in many important matters. The three R's, Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic were for a long time the principal subjects of the common school; later Spelling, still the Shibboleth of plebian culture, was add- ed; then Geography, Grammar, and United States History. In general the schools of those times were more concerned about imparting knowl- edge than about developing in their pupils power to use that knowledge in the practical affairs of life and were not at all concerned about the motives of the pupils in the use to which they might apply their knowl- edge: whether they should be mercenary and selfish or philanthropic and serviceable to the Social welfare. The form and much of the con- tent of those schools of an older generation we have inherited and our schools are still obsessed for the most part with the notion that the sine qua non of educational procedure consists of committing something to memory from a book and being able afterwards to reproduce it in sub- stance in a written examination. "Knowledge is Power" is an ancient aphorism but the knowledge that gives power must be comprehended and experienced not merely memorized out of a text-book. A recent writer calls for a "broader conception of education in which the ac- quiring of book-knowledge and the training of the intellect shall be subordinated to training in the art of living." Speaking of the ideals of a group of High School pupils, their teacher said, "The highest com- pliment those students can pay to a person is to say that 'he proved equal to the occasion'." How could we better express the end towards the attainment of which knowledge, discipline, intellectual acumen, and emotional dispositions should contribute. "To be equal to the occasion" in all the relationships of life would make possible the largest service and the greatest personal satisfactions. Knowledge, discipline, intellec- tual acumen, and emotional dispositions are not ends in themselves; they are only the means to the end of making a more efficient and happy contributor to social welfare. Prof. Albion Small says: "The teacher who realizes his social function will not be satisfied with passing children
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to the next grade. He will read his success only in the record of men and women who go from school ..... zealous to do their part in making a better future. Sociology demands of educators ..... that they shall not rate themselves as leaders of children merely but as makers of society." Prof. John Dewey says: "I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform." In a new book entitled "The Child and the School" the author says in the introduction, "The gap between school practice and the modern point of view ..... is painfully apparent. There are numerous signs indicating that the old educational order is passing; there are vital tendencies everywhere showing the new- er trend of the times ....... Educationally speaking we seem to be 'Be- tween two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born'." Dr. Wheeler writing of "Bergson and Education" finds "the Boy Scout move- ment a much more significant indication of modern educational tenden- cies than the public schools." "The scout is a member of a community. He is called to live a life' with risks, adventures, and responsibilities ; he is compelled to face real, concrete problems. Of course he may seek knowledge from men or books in order to solve these problems; but he is never forced to obtain it out of relation to life. To a scout the ac- quiring of knowledge is subordinated to living a life and to fulfilling of responsibilities towards a community. The scout movement is based on the sound educational principle that the best preparation for life is participation in life-a principle which so far has been very imperfect- ly realized in the conventional school system."
Mr. Henry Seidel Canby in "The Literary Review" says: "Education does not mean information. It is not what you know but what you can do with what you know that makes education. Intelligence is not educa- tion; intelligence uses education. Training, whether in the classics or in mining engineering, is only a part of education, not the thing itself. The educated man has learned to relate one field of knowledge to an- other; he has learned to interpret facts and subdue them to his own uses ..... School from the earliest years was for most of us a series of subjects taught with little relation to life and less to each other. Bet- ter practice here and there ...... in the puble schools are beginning to substitute for a cramming with facts a real leading onward of the child's mind and at the other end in the last years of advanced universities, education has come into touch with life and regained internal harmony. But between these extremes is the Great American Desert. Fine spirits are seeking for a trail but meanwhile thousands of youthful minds parch and grow arid or lose all capacity for intellectual thirst."
Dr. Joseph K. Hart, Editor of the Education Department of the "Survey" says: "The school, if it is to do the work of democracy and support the efforts of science, must return from its academic aloofness and find its place once more in the midst of the actual experiences of life and the world-must draw them in, must go out to them. What goes on inside of schools must be seen to be the approach to what goes on outside of schools."
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There is another angle from which this problem may be regarded : that is the expense to the community, the loss of productive labor, and the unhappiness and ill health, physical and mental, caused by miscon- duct. We are apt to think of school discipline merely as a factor in carrying on efficiently the routine of the school but in reality the ad- ministration of the school discipline affords the opportunity and means for teaching the child to form helpful social relationships, to subordinate his own selfish impulses to the rules of the game, to achieve self-control and self-direction, and to display qualities of leadership.
Such an accomplishment is the most important single object that the school can obtain.
Thomas C. O'Brien, Esq., District Attorney of Suffolk County, is re- ported to have said in an address in Reading not long ago: "We must stem the stream of juvenile delinquency and it is up to the community to do this. Three quarters of juvenile offenders do not have proper community training. Investigation shows that fifty-seven percent of ju- venile offenders have had absolutely no moral training. All the police courts in the country will be of little avail in decreasing crime if the children are not taught. The Boy Scout movement is a great factor in stemming the stream of juvenile delinquency. Organized play under proper supervision is one of the greatest aids to crime decrease."
About $54,000,000 was expended in Massachusetts last year by social agencies including the State-more than one hundred dollars a minute- on account of social misbehaviour. It has been stated that one in every two hundred inhabitants is in jail or other places of detention for crimes and misdemeanors.
Nearly one fifth of the entire expenditure of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts last year was for the care of persons suffering from men- tal disease. This is more than was expended by the State on highways, water ways and public works combined and nearly seventy percent more than the State itself expended for education. It is a well established fact that many of the cases of insanity originate in childhood exper- iences and attitudes and if taken in time may be corrected before insan- ity or other nervous disease supervenes. About seventy-five thousand persons annually are committed to insane hospitals in the United States and uncounted other thousands not so committed are incapacitated for productive labor, are miserably unhappy and are a menace to morals and the Public Safety because of nervous diseases. All or nearly all these persons pass through our schools and we do nothing or nearly nothing about it. I think Dr. Kline is authority for the Statement, that one person out of every ten you meet on the street is likely sometime in lis life to be an inmate of a hospital for treatment of Mental diseases.
This statement occurs in a Teachers College Bulletin from Columbia University: "Today it is apparent that teachers in general would benefit by another type of program then the typical course of study. They re- quire a restatement of their task in terms of the changes in intellect, character, and skill to be effected in their pupils. This program would
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supplement and not supplant existing courses of study. Those habits and attitudes essential to successful living and desirable for their own sake would thereby be stressed as the main objectives of education."
For convenience lists of habits are arranged under five captions: health habits, personal habits, social-moral habits, intellectual habits. motor habits. There is also a special list of habits of children to be es- tablished by parents in the homes. Another pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, N. Y. is the Upton-Chassell Scale for Measuring the Habits of Good Citizen- ship. Prof. Conklin in "The Trend of Human Evolution" says "Useful behavior is the residue left after useless responses are eliminated and it is not necessary to hold that fitness is always the result of the elimi- nation of unfit persons. It is often the result of the elimination of un- fit reactions: natural selection is not only personal but also intra-per- sonal".
Of the judge of a famous juvenile court it has been said: "He has recognized the essential character of his task-that a juvenile court has real justification only when the judge tries to enter the mental life of the juvenile delinquent, to sense the underlying tendencies that lead to crime, to enter into so intimate a relationship to the boy or girl as to secure confidence; for only such a contact makes it possible to exer- cise an educational influence. In the center of the proceedings is always the child himself and the main aim is to secure his full open confession, a proof that he has gained the confidence of the child. Only rarely does he convict on evidence of witnesses and in the eyes of the judge that resort is proof of his own failure." The judge's secret, in part at least, surely is that he is not as a rule seriously concerned with the mis- deed that has been committed but very seriously with the defendant as a human being, and therefore always appeals to whatever he finds of good in him. Dr. Hugh T. Patrick says in an article on "The Patient Himself". "In assisting to adjust a patient to necessary conditions frequently we have to show him he can do things he says he cannot do .- Our job is to make him equal to the task he is trying to escape or so modify the task that he can perform it, or give him another which he can do with satisfaction. Some of the greatest and most beautiful work of all time has been done by men and women who are too much controlled by their emotions, too sensitive to the jars of a battling society, too unstable to carry the gross burdens of a materialistie world. Ours the task, then, to strengthen their inte lectual control, to toughen their shrinking sensi- bilities, and to adjust the burden to the bearer. Thus may we too add to the sum total of human health, happiness, and progress."
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