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Page 37
Surely one finds in the preceding pages rather slight grounds to
warrant the almost unqualified faith in repetition such as the school
practice exhibits (Table X), or in the importance of the particular
subjects so repeated. There may be evidence in this faith and practice
of what Snedden[43] calls the "undue importance attached to the
historic instruments of secondary education ... now taught mainly
because of the ease with which they can be presented ... and which may
have had little distinguishable bearing on the future achievement of
those young people so gifted by nature as to render it probable that
they should later become leaders." But such instruments will not lack
direct bearing on the productions of failures for pupils whose
interests and needs are but remotely served by such subjects.
A recent ruling in the department of secondary education,[44] in New
York City, denies high school pupils permission "to repeat the same
grade and type of work for the third consecutive time" after failing a
second time. And further it is prescribed that "students who have failed
twice in any given grade of a foreign language should be dropped from
all classes in that language." Our findings in this study will seem to
verify the wisdom of these rulings. Another ruling that "students who
have failed successfully four prepared subjects should not be permitted
to elect more than four in the succeeding term," or if they "have
passed four subjects and failed in one," should be permitted to take
five only provisionally, seems to judge the individual's capacities
pretty much in terms of failure. We have found that for approximately
4,000 repetitions with an extra schedule, however or by whomever they
may have been determined, the percentage getting A's and B's was
higher and the percentage of failing was substantially lower than for
approximately 4,700 repetitions with only three or four subjects for
each schedule. It does not appear that the number of subjects is
uniformly the factor of prime importance, or that such a ruling will
meet the essential difficulty regarding failure. The failure in any
subject will more often tend to indicate a specific difficulty rather
than any general lack of 'ability plus application' relative to the
number of subjects. The maladjustment is not so often in the size of
the load as in the kind or composition of the load for the particular
individual concerned. The burden is sometimes mastered by repeated
trials. But often the particular adjustment needed is clearly indicated
by the antecedent failures.
2. DISCONTINUANCE OF SUBJECT OR COURSE, AND THE SUBSTITUTION OF OTHERS
Earlier in this chapter appears the number and percentage of failures
whose disposition was effected by discontinuance or by substitution.
Twenty-four and five-tenths per cent of the failures were accounted for
in this way. This grouping happens to be a rather complex one. Many of
such pupils simply discontinue the course and then drop out of school.
Some discontinue the subject but because they have extra credits take
no substitute for it; others substitute in a general way to secure the
needed credits but not specifically for the subject dropped. Only a few
shift their credits to another curriculum. In some instances the
subject is itself an extra one, and needs no substitute. For the
graduating pupils only about 5 per cent of the failures are disposed of
by discontinuing and by substitution of subjects. This fact may be due
to the greater economy in examinations, or to the relatively inflexible
school requirements for completing the prescribed work by repetition
whether for graduation or for college entrance. In only one school was
there a tendency to discontinue the subject failed in. So far as
failures represent a definite maladjustment between the pupil and the
school subject, the substitution of other work would seem to be the
most rational solution of the difficulty.
A consideration of the success following a substitution of vocational
or shop subjects, to replace the academic subjects of failure, offers
an especially promising theme for study. No opportunity was offered in
the scope of this study to include that sort of inquiry, but its
possibilities are recognized and acknowledged herein as worthy of
earnest attention. In only two of the eight schools was any shop-work
offered, and only one of these could probably claim vocational rank.
Apart from the difficulty in reference to comparability of standards,
there were not more than a negligible number of cases of such
substitution, due partly to the relative recency in the offering of any
vocational work. In this reference a report comes from W.D. Lewis of an
actual experiment[45] in which "fifty boys of the school loafer type
... selected because of their prolific record in failure--as they had
proved absolute failures in the traditional course--were placed in
charge of a good red-blooded man in a thoroughly equipped wood work
shop." "The shop failed to reach just one." At the same time the
academic work improved. One cannot be sure of how much to credit the
type of work and how much the red-blooded man for such results. But we
may feel sure of further contributions of this sort in due time.
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