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Page 36
If it is granted that the teachers of the repeaters are equally good as
compared with the others, then the previous familiarity with the work
that is being repeated might be expected to serve as an advantage in
its favor when compared with the new and advanced work in other
subjects. But the grades for the new and advanced work as presented
below, and the grades for the repeated subjects as presented earlier in
this chapter (section 1), deny the validity of such an assumption and
give us a different version of the facts.
THE GRADES SECURED IN NEW WORK, AT SAME TIME AND BY SAME PUPILS
AS THE GRADES SECURED IN THE REPEATED SUBJECTS
Total A B C D
11,029 Boys 256 2225 5543 3005
11,941 Girls 198 2064 6604 3075
Per Cent of Total 1.9 18.6 53.1 26.4
The facts not only show a lower percentage (by 6.9 per cent) of
unsuccessful grades in the new work, but they also show a higher
percentage of A's, of B's, and of C's than for the repeated subjects.
There is definite suggestion here that often the particular subject of
failure may be more responsible and more at fault than the particular
pupil. Certainly uniformity and an arbitrary routine of tasks ignore
the individual differences of interests and abilities. But by their
greater and their repeated failures in the same deficient subjects (see
p. 66) these pupils seem to have reasserted stoutly the facts ignored.
They have been asked to repeat and repeat again subjects which they
have already indicated their unfitness to handle successfully. This
pursuance of an unsuccessful method is not good procedure in the
business world. The doctor does not employ such methods.
_d. The Number and Results of Identical Repetitions_
It has become apparent before this that some pupils fail several times
and in identical subjects because of their unsuccessful repetitions
after each failure. Final success might at times justify multiplied
repetitions, but in such instances it becomes increasingly important
that the repetition should eventually end in success after the subject
has been repeated two, three or four times. If such is not the result,
then the method is at best a misdirection of energy; or still worse it
is an irreparable error, expensive to the individual and the school
alike, which only serves to accentuate the inequalities and perversions
of opportunity imposed by an arbitrary requirement of the same
subjects, the same methods, and the same scheme of education for all
pupils alike, regardless of their capacities and interests. In using
the term identical it is intended to designate just one unit of the
course, as English I, or Latin II. The following table will disclose
the facts as to the success resulting from each number of such
successive and identical repetitions per pupil.
TABLE X
THE NUMBERS AND RESULTS OF REPEATED REPETITIONS, FOR IDENTICAL SUBJECTS
NO. OF Grades No Per Cent
REPET. A B C D Grade Totals Failing
1 Boys 62 532 1727 880 216 3117
Girls 80 702 2329 1180 342 4633 32.5
2 Boys 1 15 106 77 3 202
Girls 3 17 154 89 2 265 36.6
3 Boys .. 0 26 33 0 59
Girls .. 5 19 36 3 63 59.0
4 Boys .. .. 4 11 .. 15
Girls .. .. 8 25 .. 33 75.0
5 Boys .. .. .. 2 .. 2
Girls .. .. .. 5 .. 5 100.0
6 Boys .. .. .. 0 .. 0
Girls .. .. .. 2 .. 2 100.0
Tot. Boys 63 547 1863 1003 219 3695
Girls 83 724 2510 1337 347 5001
Although a smaller number of pupils make each higher number of
repetitions, a higher percentage of each successive group meets with
final failure in the subject repeated, and the facts are indicative of
what should be expected however large the numbers making such
multiplied repetitions. It seems almost incredible that pupils should
anywhere be required or permitted to make the fourth, fifth, or sixth
repetition of subjects so manifestly certain of leading to further
disappointment. It must be understood, too, that five and six
repetitions means six and seven times over the same school work. The
existence of such a situation testifies to a sort of deep-seated faith
in the dependence of the pupil's educational salvation on the
successful repetition of some particular school subject. It shows no
recognition that the duty of the school is to give each pupil the type
of training best suited to his individual endowments and limitations,
and at the same time in keeping with the needs of society. Such
indiscriminate repetition becomes a matter of thoughtless duplicating
and operates, first, to increase the economic, educational, and human
waste, where the school is especially the agency charged with
conserving the greatest of our national resources. Second, it operates
to fix more permanently the habit and attitude of failing for such
pupils, and bequeaths to society the fruit of such maladjustments,
which cannot fail to function frequently and seriously in the
production of industrial dissatisfactions and misfits later in life.
Such probabilities are merely in keeping with the psychological fact
that habits once established are not likely to be easily lost.
Indiscriminate repetition is an expensive way of failing to do the
thing which it assumes to do.
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