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Page 48
There is apparently no constitutional impediment to a still further
extension of the principle of flexibility and to the minimizing of loss
by what has been a costly trial and error method of fitting the pupils
and the subjects to each other. Short unit courses are not unfamiliar
in certain educational fields, and they lend themselves very readily to
definite and specific needs. Their usefulness may be regarded as a
warrant of a wider adoption of them. Although they are as yet employed
mainly for an intensive form of training or instruction to meet
specific needs of a particular group in a limited time,[60] the
principle of their use is no longer novel. A unit course of an
extensive nature is also conceivable, for instance, a semester of any
subject entitled to two credits might allow a division into two
approximately equal portions. If then both teacher and pupil feel, when
one unit is completed, that the pupil is in the wrong subject or that
his work is hopeless in that subject, he might be permitted to
withdraw and be charged with a failure of only one point, that is, just
one-half the failure of a semester's work in the subject--or one-fourth
that for a whole year with no semester divisions. Even if this scheme
would not work equally well in all subjects, it implies no extensive
reorganization to employ it in the ones adapted. It is not incredible
that, as the people more generally understand that physics, chemistry,
and biology have become vital to national self-preservation and social
well-being, their emphasis as subjects required or as subjects sought
by most of the pupils may lead to a high percentage of failures, such
as is found for Latin and mathematics usually, or for science as
reported in St. Louis, where it was required of all and yielded the
highest percentage of failures. Now the teaching of most sciences by
the unit plan will comprise no greater difficulty than is involved in
overcoming text-book methods and the conservatism of convention. The
project device, as employed in vocational education, will also lend
itself in many instances to the unit division of work. The first
consequence of this plan will be a reduction of failures for the pupil
in those subjects whose continued pursuit would mean increased failure.
The second consequence may be to relieve teachers of hopeless cases of
misfit in any subject, for if the pupils no longer have intolerable
subjects imposed on them the teachers will come to demand only
tolerable work in the subjects of their choice. The third consequence
will probably be to encourage pupils to find themselves by trying out
subjects at less risk of such cumulative failures as are disclosed in
section 3 of the preceding chapter.
4. PROVISION FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE PUPILS' STUDY
The forms of treatment suggested in the first three sections of this
chapter for the diminution of failures will find their natural
culmination of effectiveness in a plan for helping the pupils to help
themselves. This has been notably lacking in most school practice.
Every improvement of the school adaptation still assumes that the
pupils are to apply themselves to honest, thorough study. But the high
school must bear in mind that good studying implies good teaching. It
cannot be trusted to intuition or to individual discovery. Real,
earnest studying is hard work. The teachers have usually presupposed
habits of study on the part of the pupils, but one of the important
lessons for the school to teach the pupil is how to use his mind and
his books effectively and efficiently. Even the simplest kinds of
apprenticeship instruct the novice in the use of each device and in the
handling of each tool to a degree which the school most often
disregards when requiring the pupil to use even highly abstract and
complex instrumentalities. The practice of the school almost glorifies
drudgery as a genuine virtue. E.R. Breslich refers to this fact,[61]
saying, "so it happens that the preparation for the classwork, not the
classwork itself burdens the lives of the pupils." The indefensibleness
of the indiscriminate lesson giving consists in the fact that it is not
the load but the harness that is too heavy. The harness is more
exhausting and burdensome than the load appointed. The destination
sought and the course to be followed in the lesson preparation are very
many times not clearly indicated, lest the discipline, negative and
repressive though it be, should be extracted from the struggle. The
fact is that discouragement and failure are too often the best of
testimony that teachers are not much concerned about how the pupil
employs his time or books in studying a lesson. The point is
illustrated admirably by the report in the _Ladies Home Journal_, for
January, 1913, of a request from a hardworking widow that the teacher
of one of her children in school try teaching the child instead of just
hearing the lessons which the mother had taught.
Directing the pupils' study is sometimes regarded as a more or less
formalized scheme of organization and procedure, which requires extra
time, extra teachers, and a lesser degree of independence on the part
of the pupils. But here too the important things are differentiation
and specific direction as adapted to the needs of the subject, the
topic or the pupils. It must be insisted that supervised study is not
the same thing in all schools, in all subjects, or for all pupils. In
other words, its very purpose is defeated if it is overformalized. An
experiment is reported by J.H. Minnick with two classes in plane
geometry,[62] of practically the same size, ability, and time allowance
for study, which indicated that the supervised pupils were the less
dependent as judged by their success in tests consisting of new
problems. The pupils also liked the method, in spite of their early
opposition, and no one failed, while two of the unsupervised class
failed. William Wiener also speaks of the wonderful self-control which
springs from the supervised study program.[63] As to the need of extra
teachers for the purpose there is not much real agreement, since the
plans of adaptation are so different in themselves. Increased labor for
the same teachers will rightly imply greater renumeration. Colvin makes
mention of the additional expense imposed by the larger force of
teachers required.[64] But J.S. Brown finds that the failures are so
largely reduced that with fewer repeaters there is a consequent saving
in the teaching force.[65] With a faculty of 66 teachers, he reports 38
classes in which there was no failure, and a marked reduction of
failures in general by the use of supervised study. It is interesting
and significant to note here that by allowing 100 daily pupil
recitations to the teacher the repeated subjects reported in this study
would require 87 teachers for one semester or 11 teachers for the full
four years. This fact represents more than $50,000 in salaries alone.
Buildings, equipment, heat, and other expenses will more than double
the amount. But such expense is incomparable with what the pupils pay
in time, in struggles, and in disappointment in order to succeed later
in only 66.7 per cent of the subjects repeated. As none of the eight
schools provided anything more definite than a general after school
hour for offering help, and which often has a punitive suggestion to
it, the possibility of saving many of these pupils from failure and
repetition by the wise and helpful direction of their study is simply
unmeasured. A conclusion that is particularly encouraging is reported
by W.C. Reavis to the effect that the poorer pupils--the ones who most
need the direction--are the ones that supervised study helps the
most.[66] There is nothing novel in saying that good teaching and good
studying are but different aspects of the same process, but it would be
an innovation to find this conception generally realized in the school
practice.
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