program was a very necessary addition to the secondary school work, called in the Director of Manual Arts as the logical person in the system to co-ordinate the work. Together they went over various possibilities. The outcome was that it was determined to use as many of the teachers as possible to begin the work at the beginning by first building a background through study of occupations, and to provide the second step, conferences, at the most needed points in the system. STUDY OF OCCUPATIONS Twenty-two senior high school teachers were asked to name all of the occupations in which they had had experiences or with which they had contacts. It was decided then to give study of occupations in the high school through a series of forty-eight talks on occupations. These are informal in nature and are followed by questions and discussion. This work is a requirement for graduation. The large number of pupils in the freshman and sophomore classes who come from rural and parochial schools are required to attend eighteen talks. Here the aim is to broaden extensively their occupational horizon. Seniors are required to attend twelve, and their selection must show some continuity of purpose, as along industrial, agricultural, commercial, homemaking, or professional lines. Some of the talks are for boys, some for girls, and some for both. For more minute details of occupations studied, administration, methods employed in securing general and local data, organization of material, etc., I refer you to pages 97 and 114 of the Yearbook. A large number of teachers is not a necessity. With an industrial, home-making, commercial, agricultural, science, and one or two academic teachers, and a principal, it would be quite possible to make a good start. In the junior high school a semester course in the study of occupations, coupled with educational guidance, was instituted. Boys and girls are segregated. The classes meet daily and are given credit as a social science. Textbooks are used as a basis for the work, but a vital part is the field trips to view occupations first hand. The valuable material on about forty-eight of the most common occupations, collected and organized in the senior high school, is used as supplementary material in these classes. Throughout the manual arts courses in the junior high schools, the giving of occupational information, including vocational and educational guidance, is planned for as one of the four principal aims of the work. This includes not only the occupations represented in each shop, but also occupations allied with it. Similar guidance is carried on as part of the homemaking course, and to a slightly lesser degree in agricultural and commercial courses, which latter includes salesmanship, commercial law, advertising, bookkeeping, etc. In the junior high school counseling classes in occupations, personal counsel is given at the close, when freshman programs are worked out. In the senior high school all freshmen not coming from the junior school and all other newcomers are personally advised in planning their high school programs according to one of five groups of courses offered. A separate record card in manual arts follows all boys through the junior and senior schools. Among other things, decidedly positive or negative qualities are noted. guidance card just mentioned are often used, together with the student's permanent school record. FUTURE PLANS When more time is made available for our guidance work through a part-time counsellor, we plan four additional phases of work: first, counseling with all students once each year; second, counseling with all who fall below passing in any subject; third, counseling with all who must leave school; and fourth, the organization on a small scale of a placement office. In conclusion, let me emphasize that our chief aim throughout our guidance program is to teach boys and girls proper methods of helping themselves in studying and analyzing their own aptitudes, and the occupations in which these aptitudes will successfully and happily function; and to use reasonable methods of determining the proper kind of training or education needed. From the records of 250 graduates of our high school we are assured that we are going in the proper direction. HOW CAN PUPILS BE SELECTED FOR GROUPING? T HE bases in use for selecting pupils for grouping take into consideration various phases of a child's development. They are (1) chronological age or the age in years, months, and days; (2) physiological age, which indicates the stages of physical growth and stages of physical maturity; (3) mental age, which is indicative of the growth of certain mental traits, capacities, interests, and abilities; (4) social age or the growth of social attitudes and the ability to make, adapt, and control social adjustments; and (5) educational age, which indicates the rate and position in school progress. The pupil's general ability in school subjects may be determined by the teacher's judgment or by means of a composite educational age determined by standardized tests. No one of these bases is adequate for the grouping of school children. All five ages are present at any chronological age of a child's development, but their rate of growth may not be the same. A child may be accelerated in one or more of the four ages, other than the chronological, and yet be normal or retarded in the other ages. For example, a boy or girl may have normal physical development and be retarded mentally, educationally, or socially. It is hardly necessary, then, to point out the inadequacy of selecting pupils for grouping on the basis of mental tests alone. By so doing, the extent of mental maturity only is considered. One shortcoming of the method is its failure to take into account the relative degrees of brightness or the intelligence quotients (I.Q.'s) of the pupils. For example, two pupils receiving the same mental age on an intelligence test, may have different chronological ages. Evidently the younger of the two pupils is the brighter, or the more mentally alert. For similar reasons a method of grouping based on the chronological ages of pupils would not be adequate. Pupils with the same age in years may have widely varying mental ages; consequently they will vary accordingly in degree of brightness or in the I.Q.'s. Perhaps an ideal method would be to select pupils on the basis of all developmental ages, namely, chronological, physiological, mental, social, and educational. Baldwin lays down the following general Reprinted by permission from the School Bulletin, Minneapolis Public Schools. principles for grade or group enrichment. or acceleration: I. Acceleration upwards through the school grades, by utilizing the methods already outlined, should be the principal way of advancing superior or gifted children who are physiologically accelerated (those children who are relatively large for their age, sex, race, and social status). This is particularly advisable for those children who are mentally and socially mature for their chronological age. These children may safely be accelerated two, three, or more grades if thoroughness and accomplishment are also considered. Such children will complete the course at an early chronological age with superior knowledge and training on account of their superior ability and advanced stages of maturity. very rare, a more specialized psychoeducational study must be made. Gifted or superior children may be forced in school to unusual accomplishment by any of the methods outlined above, regardless of their welfare. Any flexible modern school system should be able to adapt its administration and instruction to struction to these three fundamental methods of selecting and training superior or gifted children. In Minneapolis, pupils in the junior high schools are selected and classified into five ability groups on the basis of their chronological and mental ages. Following is the procedure used for classifying into ability groups the 6A pupils who enter junior high schools. The grouping is based upon the pupil's chronological age and his mental age, as determined by the Haggerty Intelligence Examination, Delta II. In order that the procedure throughout the city may be the same, the pupil's chronological age is taken as the number of years old the pupil was on his last birthday . The mental age can be found by using the following table: TABLE FOR FINDING MENTAL AGES FROM INTELLIGENCE 2. For superior or gifted children who are not especially advanced in physiological age, but of different I.Q.'s, the acceleration should be accomplished in a horizontal direction, by means of some type of grade sectioning on the basis of I. Q.'s. For some of these pupils acceleration should be by means of an X, Y, Z division within the grade, while for others additional subjects should be provided, such as an elective course in special fields, Age in special training in physical education or other forms of supplementary work and excursions the latter especially where the home environment is limited or where the pupil tends to be a "narrow gauge" type, mentally and socially. These children. will complete an enriched school course at the average age. 3. For the glib, clever, bright children. of the superficial type, training in accuracy and thoroughness should be the principal objective in all of the grades and all of the groups through means of utilizing their predominant interests. These children are the most difficult to train in school, and they frequently dissipate their energies and those of others after they leave school. Years 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 113-115 15 17. EXAMPLE: Pupil A scored 97 on the intelligence test Locate 97 in the table. It will be found in the line opposite the number 13 in the first column, or the mental age in years. It is also in the months' column headed by the number 3. Pupil A's mental age is therefore 13 years, 3 months. Pupil B scored 122. Find 121-2 in the table. The mental age is 15 years, 6 months. When the chronological and mental ages have been obtained, the pupil's ability group can be found in the follow 4. For the genius or prodigy, who is ing table: Chronological ABILITY GROUPING OF 6A PUPILS BASED ON MENTAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL AGES ABILITY GROUP EXAMPLE: Pupil A has a chronological age of 11 years and a mental age of 13 years, 3 months Locate 11 in the chronological age column. Locate in the table and opposite chronological age 11 the column in which the mental age 13 years 3 months is included. Pupil A falls in ability group C. Pupil B's chronological age is 13, mental age 15 years, 6 months. Locate 13 in the chronological age column. Locate in the table and opposite chronlogical age 13, the column in which the mental age 15 years, 6 months is included. Pupil B is in ability group B. The foregoing plan takes into account, also, the intelligence quotients of the pupils. Thus, the pupils in any one group are fairly homogeneous with respect to chronological age, mental maturity, and degree of brightness. Other methods of selection and grouping might be worked out which would be superior to the Minneapolis plan. The latter does not take into consideration physiological age and social age. This would be very difficult to accomplish, since adequate procedures are not available. The plan considers educational age to the extent that pupils of the same grade are classi fied into five groups, but only superficially with respect to the extent of variation or progress in any one school subject. Since the mental examination assumes an important part in the Minneapolis plan of grouping, it should be pointed out that a mental test takes into consideration few distinctions of the relative values of the special traits in the specific individual under examination. Little or no recognition is made of the child's development and emotional drive, of the will to succeed in school work, the desire to create, the ability to lead, or the willingness to co-operate with others. These are factors of vital significance to the teacher, since they determine the use the pupil makes of his innate powers. Wherever it is apparent that a pupil is not meeting the education requirements of his ability group, a careful educational diagnosis. should be made to discover the causes of the difficulty. In some cases it will be necessary to make shifts in the grouping. A pupil may be placed in either a higher or lower group according to the need of the particular case concerned. FROM MUD PIES TO PLASTICINE By MARJORIE belle shepHARD A S WE turn the pages of history, we find that in every age man has formed objects from plastic substances. Is it, then, a matter of wonderment that this tendency is so strongly developed in the children of the present day? BRIGGS, Student, University of Chicago Unfortunately, because of modern ideas. of cleanliness, there are few mothers who permit their little ones to make mud pies and cakes with which to feed their hungry doll families. This is particularly true of the city child, who, but for a brief sum KINDERGARTEN PLAY STORES, Elementary School of the University of Chicago does sand bring into play the delicate nerves of touch, lying in the tips of the fingers, to as great an extent as does mud, for the very nature of sand induces size rather than delicacy. It is thus clear that for immemorial ages mud has furnished the natural material by which the child has gained and increased his sensibility of touch and appreciation of form. To offset ultra-civilized conditions and thus give to the child at least some of the training which he has formerly acquired naturally and unconsciously, clay modeling has been introduced into the kindergarten-primary curriculum. The methods employed, however, by the conservative and by the progressive schools are in marked contrast. In the former round so that it would roll like the colored wool ball with which he had played in his gift lesson. Turning to me, the teacher said, "You cannot imagine how delighted the children are when they are able to use a ball which they have made for themselves!" "Tomorrow," she continued, "I shall select six of the balls and paint them for the children so as to represent those in the gift bax." "What will be your next step?" I asked. "To train the children in the estimation of size," my friend responded. "We shall make large balls and small ones. They may be called apples. I shall follow this up by another lesson in which each child will make two balls of the same size, and from these four balls of equal size. Then |