USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Reading > Town of Reading Massachusetts annual report 1924 > Part 10
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School Committee Office, High School
Clerk, Margaret Hunt Res. 30 Hill Crest Rd. Office Hours, 8.30 a. m. to 4 p. m., except on Saturdays, 9 to 12 a. m.
Superintendent of Schools
Adelbert L. Safford, Office-High School Res. 8 Middlesex Ave. Office Hours, 8.30 to 9.30 a. m. on school days.
Attendance Officer
Abigail H. Mingo
Office-High School
School Physician
Charles R. Henderson, M. D. 126 Woburn St.
School Nurse
Mabel M. Brown, R. N., Office-High School Res. 11 Wilson St., Malden
Janitors
Salaries
High School, Charles W. Richardson, 107 Haven St.
$1,560.00
High School Matron, Ara A. Pratt, 29 Orange St.
1,040.00
Highland School, Jesse N. Hutchinson, 79 Bancroft Ave.
1,560.00
Grouard House, Wm. Killam, 15 Locust St.
127.50
Grouard House, Olive S. Kelley, North Reading
260.00
Center School, Waldo Reid, 20 Ash St.
1,300.00
Union St. School, Waldo Reid, 20 Ash St.
Lowell St. School, Sylvanus L. Thompson, Intervale Terrace
1,170.00
Prospect St. School, Walter F. Cook, 6 Ash St. 1,170.00
Chestnut Hill School, Harry S. Lovejoy, 47 Hopkins St.
520.00
Mrs. Marion B. Temple, 50 Hill Crest Rd.
Term expires 1926
Term expires 1926
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ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE
Walter S. Parker, Chairman Adelbert L. Safford, Secretary
Sub-Committees W. S. Parker, Chairman, is member ex-officio of each sub-committee
L. F. Quimby
Finance and Accounts Mrs. M. B. Temple J. W. Morton
Books and Supplies
Mrs. Ida A. Young
J. W. Morton
Mrs. M. B. Temple
School Houses and Property J. W. Morton L. F. Quimby
Mrs. R. B. Lumsden
Rules and Regulations L. F. Quimby
M. B. Temple
Teachers and Salaries
L. F. Quimby
J. W. Morton
Mrs. Ida A. Young
Music and Drawing J. W. Morton Mrs. R. B. Lumsden
L. F. Quimby
Course of Study Mrs. Ida A. Young J. W. Morton
154
REPORT OF SCHOOL COMMITTEE, 1924
To the Citizens of Reading :
The Reading School Committee submits its annual report of 1924. The careful reading of the several reports accompanying this report is earnestly solicited.
This year, 1924, has been an eventful year in the educational history of Reading.
There has been, during the past few years, a constant increase in the number of pupils seeking admission to our schools and the time has now arrived when immediate action should be taken to properly and adequately house the increasing numbers. The School Committee will in the near future make a report calling for funds to erect a suitable building in the vicinity of the Highland School.
The superintendent has called special attention to the needs of the school department for more adequate accommodations. In his report he has explained in full detail the special reasons for erecting a building for the Junior High School pupils near the Highland School building. The most important and the most pressing matter in connection with school affairs is the urgent need of a large building for Junior High School pupils. In fact in nearly every school in town there is urgent need of relief from too large classes.
This matter of dividing the school grades into six years for the elementary grades, three years for the Junior High School, and three years for the Senior High School is not fully understood by the public. The superintendent has touched upon the matter lightly in his report to which attention is called.
On account of the fact that some persons are inclined to believe that the moral nature of the child is slighted in our schools, attention is called to the fact that there exists in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts an ancient statute which is mandatory in its insistence upon moral training in our schools. It imposes upon all teachers the duty of exerting "their best endeavors to impress upon the minds of children and youth committed to their care and instruction the principles of piety and justice and a sacred regard for truth, love of their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society and the basis upon which a republican constitution is founded."
The appropriation for 1925 requested of the town is printed in some detail in the table entitled "Budget of School Department, Town of Reading, 1925."
155
The terms of Jesse W. Morton and Ida A. Young expire in February, 1925. These two positions as members of the Reading School Committee are to be filled by election at the annual town meeting in March, 1925. For the School Committee : WALTER S. PARKER, Chairman LEONE F. QUIMBY RUTH A. LUMSDEN MARION B. TEMPLE JESSE W. MORTON IDA A. YOUNG
Reading, Massachusetts. December 31, 1924.
156
REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, 1924
To the Honorable, the School Committee, Town of Reading, Massachusetts.
I respectfully submit for your information and consideration my twelfth annual report as Superintendent of the Reading Public Schools. This is the thirty-first annual report of the whole series made by Superin- tendents of Reading Schools.
Scientific Re-organization of Education
The year nineteen hundred twenty-four has been one of intensive activity on the part of all engaged in carrying on the work of the schools. We are in the midst of a period of critical, scientific study and re-or- ganization of education with respect to both its main objectives and its methods of procedure. Reading teachers and the administrative staff of the schools are in general alert and progressive in their attitudes towards this movement and are studying with marked earnestness our present practices in order to discover feasible adjustments and modifica- tions that would enable the schools to serve better the diverse personal- ities and objectives of our pupils. The principals of the Senior High School and Junior High School, the Director of Standards and Guidance, the Dean of Girls and Attendance Officer, the School Nurse, and a large number of the teachers are taking courses at Boston University, Harvard, or elsewhere, studying various aspects of educational progress.
Dr. Wm. H. Kilpatrick, of Teachers' College, Columbia University, in a recent article explains the fundamental difference between the "old" education and the "new" education that is rapidly taking the place of the "old." He represents the "old" education visualized as a forcing process or compulsion in which the pupil learns, under the threat of punishment, an assignment of knowledge that is expected to be useful to him at some future period of adult life but is not closely related to his present interests or habits of living. The learning process in the "old" consisted largely of committing to memory certain prescribed facts and of a limited amount of theoretical demonstration but almost not at all of application of knowledge to real situations in life. The "new" edu- cation aims to expand the pupil's present adjustments to the experi- ences of life. These adjustments must be made in three directions: "Seeing, feeling, and doing." Seeing and understanding require broad- ening the outlook and deepening the insight. Feeling and willing in- volve emotional attitudes and appreciations. These have their begin- nings in the home circle. The school helps to expand them to experi- ences outside the home. Behavior problems, social control, vocational
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and avocational interests, the mental health, and the spiritual life are all deeply involved in the attitudes and appreciations that characterize the personality of the individual. "Doing"' or applying knowledge re- quires a technique of performance which can be acquired only by practice on a real project. These three elements of "seeing, willing and doing" react upon each other in many ways. A clear intellectual comprehension makes easier the learning of the technique of perform- ance; a skilful and effective manipulation contributes to enjoyment, a favoring attitude, and a keener appreciation; and an affective craving cr predisposition often lies back of the creative urge that determines the individual's successes and career in life. Viewed in this light the "new" education concerns itself with understanding and perfecting the physical, intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual constitution of the child. The school does not arrogate to itself the task of doing all this unaided by the home, church, library, and other social and civic in- stitutions, but seeks to do its part rather to help the pupil to integrate all these agencies in forming an harmonious, efficient, and high-souled personality. Each agency working independently contributes something essential, but, when all the agencies are integrated so that they are doing "team-work", the results are of vastly more value and signifi- cance than the sum of the individual contributions of the several agencies working independently.
The task of the "old" education to teach the memorizing of certain facts and to impart a theoretical intellectual discipline to those who proved. themselves worthy and well-qualified was a simple task compared with that of attaining the objectives of the "new" socialized education, namely, to "go into all the world" and socialize "every creature" by making him fit to the limit of his possibilities to serve and share the social heritage. Without in any way lowering standards of scholarship and intellectual discipline but at the same time adjusting the tasks imposed to the intellectual ability of the individual, the "new" education aims to educate the whole child, to organize his life and enable him to use his powers, with hundred per cent functioning, for promoting the welfare of the world and therein achieving his own happiness and the abiding satisfactions of living. Such a fundamental re-direction of edu- cation involves more or less re-organization and readjustment of the mechanisms of the educative process and can be brought about only step by step after much experience and scientific experimentation by teachers of character and vision and a sympathetic and strong personality.
Education
Mark Hopkins sat on one end of a log And a farm boy sat on the other. Mark Hopkins came as a pedagogue And taught as an elder brother. I don't care what Mark Hopkins taught,
If his Latin was small and his Greek was naught,
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For the farmer boy he thought, thought he, All through lecture time and quiz, "The kind of a man I mean to be
Is the kind of a man Mark Hopkins is."
Theology, languages, medicine, law, Are peacock feathers to deck a daw
If the boys who come from your splendid schools
Are well-trained sharpers or flippant fools.
You may boast of your age and your ivied walls, Your great endowments, your marble halls And all your modern features;
Your vast curriculum's scope and reach
And the multifarious things you can teach- But how about your teachers ?
Are they men who can stand in a father's place,
Who are paid, best paid, by the ardent face
When boyhood gives, as boyhood can,
Its love and faith to a fine, true man ?
No printed word nor spoken plea Can teach young hearts what men should be,
Not all the books on all the shelves,
But what the teachers are, themselves. For Education is, Making Men;
So is it now, so was it when Mark Hopkins sat on one end of å log
And James Garfleld sat on the other. -Arthur Guiterman, in The Light Guitar.
Child Guidance Agencies
Our organization for the physical welfare of the pupils includes systematic required courses of instruction in health and physical train- ing for all pupils in the elementary schools, the Junior High School and the Senior High School. In the Junior and Senior High Schools specially trained teachers are in charge of these courses and separate class units are maintained in these subjects. Accident prevention, fire prevention, home nursing and diet receive attention. Cafeteria noon lunches are maintained at the Junior and Senior High Schools and mid- morning milk lunches in the Elementary Schools. The administrative staff for the health agencies includes, besides the grade teachers and principals, the School Physician, School Nurse, special teachers of phys :- cal training, teacher of cooking, managers of lunches, teachers of hv- giene, school dentist, and citizen committees of co-operating societies. A dental clinic, a baby and pre-school health clinic, a Schick test clinic for diphtheria prevention, and a nutrition clinic for underweight chil- aren are managed and supported in conjunction with co-operating agencies, which include the Reading Woman's Club, the Christmas Seal
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Committee, the Reading Red Cross Society, the Reading Grange, the Prospect Street Parent-Teachers Association, and the Lowell Street Parent-Teachers Association.
Our organization for preserving the mental health, standards of scholarship and suitable behavior of pupils includes several agencies besides the class teachers and principals who are all giving more or less special attention to mental hygiene and the emotional attitudes and appreciations revealed in each individual's personality and behavior habits. The "Director of Standards of Scholarship and Child Guidance" was appointed first in nineteen hundred twenty. She devotes her time chiefly to the Elementary Schools and the Junior High School. She finds the pupils that are not getting on well, seeks for the reason for their failure, and makes suitable adjustments to bring success. The mental age of pupils entering the first grade is determined by tests, and other intelligence and achievement tests and scales are used throughout the first eight grades. Particular attention is given to selection of elective courses on entering Junior High School and Senior High School. In many cases visits are made to the homes of pupils by the Director of Standards and Guidance.
Miss Fannie C. Whittemore has been director for four years and your attention is called to her report for further details. Last August she resigned to become Mrs. Robinson and was succeeded by Mrs. Ida C. Lucas, who is in addition, director of Junior Achievement Clubs, also called 4-H Clubs: Head, hand, heart and health. These are summed up in another "H", happiness. Another factor in mental health and behavior is found in the Deans of Girls in the Junior High School and Senior High School. It is the function of these deans of girls to supervise and advise the girls in those intimate and personal matters requiring the sympathy and counsel of one of their own sex. Mrs. Mingo, the Dean of Giris in the Senior High School, also is Attendance Officer for all the schools and is constantly visiting the homes where there is irregularity of school attendance or behavior problems. Mrs. Mingo is a graduate of Boston University, has taught several years, and has taken post-graduate university courses in the psychology and sociology of the school and home. The School Nurse, who is interested in mental health, as well as physical health, joins with the attendance officer and director of standards and guidance in consultation about the management of behavior and health problem cases involving physical, mental, and moral factors. In addition we have had during the past year the assist- ance of Dr. Douglas Thom of Massachusetts Department of Health, Divi- sion of Child Welfare, who has maintained a "Habit Clinic". A phychi- atrist, psychologist, and psychiatric social worker hold a clinic each month mainly for diagnosis. Where hospital treatment has seemed necessary, arrangements have been made to suit the needs of individual cases. Mrs. Elisha Fowler, with volunteer assistants representing inde- pendent agencies has managed the pre-school and habit clinics and, similarly, Mrs. Clarence C. White, chairman of the Christmas Seal
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Committee, has managed the dental clinic. The school nurse, attend- ance officer, and director of standards and guidance have co-operated with the management of the clinics and have maintained contacts with the homes as "visiting teachers."
Through a system of clubs affording opportunity for the pupils to exercise initiative and do creative work that involves application of their knowledge, the Junior High School is carrying on an elaborate plan of educational and social guidance. This plan is adapted from the work done in the Holmes Junior High School of Philadelphia and described in some detail in the book entitled "The Junior High School Idea" by Thomas-Tyndall and Myers, published by the Macmillan Company. One period each day in regular school hours is set aside for club activities and every teacher participates in club guidance.
Co-operating Agencies
The increasing activities and interest in scientific child guidance manifested by various organizations in co-operation with the schools and homes promise well for future progress. Not only are the schools better understood, more effectively moulded by public opinion, and more ade- quately supported as a result of the work of parent-teachers associations, and the other interested organizations, but the homes are influenced to- wards a more scientific and less impulsive regime for promoting the child's physical and mental health, good conduct, and usefulness as a citizen. A neighboring university is offering extension courses in prepar- ation for the responsibilities of parenthood and affirms that instinct un- supported by scientific knowledge is entirely inadequate as a guide to successful child nurture. The relationships of the family circle are the type forms from which moral ideals in social relationship are evolved and on which many of the spiritual conceptions of God and religion are founded: The brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God would be meaningless without the experiences of the family relationship. A large part of the symbolic language conveying the spiritual truths of religion are adapted from the vocabulary describing family relationships: "Our heavenly home", "our Father who art in heaven", "Thy will be done", "give us this day our daily bread", "safe in the arms of Jesus", "let me to Thy bosom fly"'. The child coming to the school transfers the atti- tudes already formed in the home and the teacher becomes in loco parentis the recipient of the child's habitual reactions or behavior.
Temper tantrums, shyness, sulkiness, lack of self-restraint,, disobedi- ence, and many other habits are formed very early in life and, unless the child can be trained to outgrow them, they become fixed infantile character traits that may persist through life and, when the great stresses and strains of life come, very often these infantile traits contribute in large measure to nervous breakdown. I hope that a Parent-Teacher Asso- czation will be sustained in each elementary district and that the edu- cation committees of other organizations will be active in promoting in home and school scientific child guidance and nurture.
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New Buildings
In general there has been a steady growth for more than a decade in the number of pupils enrolled in the schools of Reading. During the world war there was a temporary falling-off in the High School enrol- ment, due to labor shortage incident to mobilization of war forces, but in the past five years the high school has jumped ahead to more than offset the temporary check. The rate of increase in school population has been strictly limited, however, by the scarcity of dwelling houses. Recently building operations have started up briskly and a sharp increase in school enrolment is sure to result. No new school rooms have been provided since 1916, when five rooms were added to the elementary schools: two at the Lowell Street School, two at the Prospect Street School, and one at the Chestnut Hill School. In my report for 1917 I discussed the needs of the elementary school at the center of the town. This school was then and now is divided into three sections: Grades one and two at the Union Street School, grades three and four at the Center School, and grades five and six in the Highland building with the Junior. High School. The advantages of the pupils and economy in mainte- nance would be greatly augmented by bringing these three sections to- gether in one building with modern facilities. The slowing up of build- ing houses during the war period has enabled us to put off the solution of this problem for a time. Meanwhile the number of pupils being" transported from the vicinity of the old Quannapowitt Fair Grounds and from North Main Street and Van Norden Road has increased to a degree- that suggests the consideration of erecting two-room elementary school -. houses in these sections. If there should be a building boom in Reading, as many are anticipating in the near future, it does not yet appear what sections will be most affected. It is always unwise to build schoolhouses until the needs of the district affected are clearly developed. It seems wise, therefore, to resort to temporary measures for the present in the center elementary district. In the meantime the Senior High School has reached the limit of numbers that can be conveniently housed in the present building. The Junior High School has been over-crowded for some time. Classes are now meeting in the old school committee room, the assembly hall, and the basement, as well as at the Grouard House.
The necessity for more room for both the Senior and the Junior High Schools is imminent and urgent. In considering this problem the ques- tion of re-organization of our Junior and Senior High Schools on the 6-3-3 plan in place of the 6-2-4 plan now in operation naturally arises. The 6-3-3 plan, meaning six years for elementary grades, three years for the Junior High School, and three years for the Senior High School, has come to be generally accepted the country over as the preferred plan of organization. If a suitable building should be erected on School Street adjacent to the present Highland building, the ninth year of the school course could be instructed at the Junior High School and in that manner the Senior High School would be relieved of its largest class which constitutes about one-third of the entire school. This would al-
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low room in the present High School building to take care of the natural increase of pupils for a number of years, the exact number depending on the rate of growth of the population in the town. The new Junior High School building, with the present Highland building, should be large enough to accommodate the three-years classes and allow about six rooms for fifth and sixth grades until such a time as a new building for ele- mentary grades is erected near Reading Square.
When these fifth and sixth grades are removed from the Highland building, room enough would be made to provide for the growth of the Junior High School for several years. Unless a new building is started :soon, it is likely that some children will have to be put on part time or else temporary portable buildings installed. The greatest objection to portable buildings is that, although the accommodations they provide are much inferior to those of a regular schoolhouse, nevertheless when port- ables are once installed it is difficult to get rid of them.
Changes in Personnel
During the year six new teachers including the principal were appointed to the High School corps: four to fill vacancies caused by resignation and two to new positions. Four new teachers were appointed to the Junior High School staff: three to fill vacancies, one to a new position. Three teachers were appointed to fill vacancies in the Ele- mentary schools; four transfers to other positions were made: Mrs. Lucas to be Director of Standards and Guidance, Mrs. Lewis to the Junior High School, Miss Glenna Dow to the Center School, and Miss Whittier to the Highland School fifth grade. . This is the largest number of changes for several years but in most cases the question of higher salary was not the deciding factor.
The appended reports of the Principals, Director of Standards and Guidance, and of the Supervisors contain important information and discussions of administrative problems. They are commended to your careful consideration. The same policy of conservative progress in administration has been maintained as formerly and is in accord with words of Governor Smith of New York in his message to the legislature : "School costs have been mounting rapidly but not out of comparison with general economic conditions. The efficiency of our schools must be maintained at the highest possible standards."
Respectfully submitted,
ADELBERT L. SAFFORD, Superintendent.
Reading, Mass., Dec. 31, 1924.
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REPORT OF PRINCIPAL OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Mr. Adelbert L. Safford, Superintendent of Schools, Reading, Massachusetts. My dear Mr. Safford:
Allow me to begin my report with a quotation from the Manchester (Eng.) Guardian :
"Socrates described the greatest work a man could put his hands to as follows: 'For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons, or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.' That is the teacher's task; that is the task of the school. What Socrates meant, what anybody means by 'the soul' can hardly be defined in pre- cise terms. It is certainly a power in a man deeper than the clock- machine which ticks in the nerve cells of the brain, and memorizes, and calculates, and associates, that learns the tricks necessary to earning the daily bread or to engage in politics. There is some imaginative unifying force, which wills and suffers and achieves and proclaims moral judg- ments, something that makes the individual a vital part of the infinite universe. This light of the minds is the light of setting suns, and this power rolls through all things. It is a terrible fallacy to suppose that it is the ticking machine which makes men distinguished and successful. For whether it be in business or diplomacy or in the professions, the man who stands head and shoulders above his fellows is the man who Fossesses this overplus of personality. This power is the possession of all human beings, although multitudes lose it in the pressure of an ad- verse environment or by a repressive education."
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