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toward the mastery of such common essentials as reading, writing, spelling and the formal side of language-punctuation and capitalization- as ends in themselves, must be educationally sound and most desirable to put into practice in schoolsbut is it? Technique, however valuable, in real life is not an end in itself, and the plan of gaining skill, isolated from its "natural setting", seems foreign to the process by which the child gains technique outside of the school.

For example, in learning to talk the child gains his vocabulary under the strong impulse to make himself understood. Under such compelling motive and desire he learns with amazing rapidity to express himself and to make himself understood by others. In the mass of such evidence concerning the child's learning processes we find the key to method. Because of such experience we believe that when a child confronts an educative situation-call it problem, project or what you will-something which seems to him very worth-while, he usually finds a need for certain technique to accomplish his purpose. This demand is inherent. He meets it in his first day in school and he meets it in everyday experience throughout his life. Again, for example, soon after the child enters school he may wish to invite his mother to come to the school. He finds immediately that he needs words to express his thought in writing-spelling. Perhaps he wishes to make a toy in the shop and feels the need of skill for accurate measuring; or he wishes to buy his supplies, a pencil or a book, at the school store, and he is obliged to know how much money he has and how much he will have left. He sees the need for his check-book and for keeping his accounts accurately, and he soon realizes he has many uses for the fundamental operations in arithmetic in his daily work.

Skills in these common essentials, therefore, do not appear as extraneous goals or objectives. They are felt needs and the child welcomes drill as a necessity

in order to gain the skill which will save time and effort in achieving his goals. His goals are not the skills and knowledge in themselves but attainments which have real social significance.

We believe that self-actuated work causes the greatest intellectual gain to children, and therefore we seek to encourage individual projects, to foster special interests, and to allow time for such activity on the regular school program. It seems to many of us a dangerous, even anti-social practice to overstress the use of unrelated individual work either for gaining control in the tool subjects or for individual progress. Further, we believe that the child, from the very beginning, should see a direct relationship between his drill in the common essentials and the more creative activities which alone give to tool subjects their proper significance

We know from experience that a child does not have an opportunity to develop desirable habits of social usefulness under arbitrary teacher dictation or with high marks as the chief incentive We realize that the exercise of choice is a prime factor in a representative form of democratic government, and that training children to choose rightly should be continually stressed. We purpose to fill every day with opportunities involving choice both in academic work and in conduct just as we plan to fill it with work involving interest, effort, initiative, and social responsibility. We cannot, however, yet go to the lengths of those radical leaders in education of today, who would give the child the choice. of subject-matter and activity throughout the day. It seems to us that a child has neither the wisdom nor the experience which will enable him to satisfy his intellectual hunger and supply his mental necessities any more than he has the ability to select wholesome food and a balanced ration with which to nourish properly his body.

We believe that the teacher is responsi ble for creating a rich and stimulating en

vironment, for selecting the larger units of study which make up the curriculum. This is because the teacher realizes on the one hand the child's capacity, his natural interests and abilities, and on the other, those great forces and ideals which have moved civilization forward, and she can select the fundamental experiences of the race which no child should lose. The curriculum is classified under subject headings. This is the source material for the grade. The projects in each field of learning vary greatly from year to year according to the interest, maturity and ability of the grade groups. The teachers of the school are further responsible for seeing that the child's experience in the school is unified, that certain threads of experience shall be traceable through the length and breadth of the curriculum. That is, that the skills and knowledge gained in one grade are used as far as possible in those which follow it. We cannot resist quoting Colonel Parker on this point:

But knowledge is boundless, and the pupils can get but a drop of the ocean. What knowledge can we present them in the years we have them under our care and guidance? What rule shall govern us in the selection? The answer is not far to seek: our selections can be entirely governed by what each pupil needs for his personal development. He needs that knowledge which will enable him to serve best his school and the

world. The two answers are one: The needs of the school and the needs of the world are the needs of the individual.

We believe the teacher is responsible for seeing that every avenue to a child's soul is open and in continual use; that as far as possible the day is filled with delightful work, hard work, worth-while work; that in his early years the child has opportunity to paint, draw, model, cook, sing, sew, and dance, to construct, read, write, and that he gains some measure of control over the fundamental tools of civilization-some experience in its great occupations and arts which have brought mankind to the present level of society; and finally that the teacher is responsible for seeing that the children's expression and effort result in satisfying achieve

ment. There should be no such thing in the child's life as the sense of utter failure, if he has put forth his best effort. In other words the work should be within the capacity of the child-difficult enough to take all his energy and full of obstacles to be overcome-but he should find all along the way that inspiration which only success and the sense of growing power can give him.

We believe that if children have daily contact with beauty in many forms-if they live in an atmosphere in which beauty is considered a prime essential of education, both from the point of view of impression and expression-most of them will develop naturally feelings and standards of good taste which will go far in protecting them from any ugliness and sordidness in their environment.

To make the theoretical statement given above clear, it seems necessary to include concrete examples of the social group projects as they are carried out in the everyday practice in the school. Space will allow for only the few illustrations which follow.

We must give the first place of importance in our social education to the so-called Morning Exercise the daily assembly of the school. This is a social project involving the entire school group in its scope. It is our best expression of the principle of co-operation at work. It brings the school together as a family in which the group units and individuals become acquainted with each other, learn to recognize and appreciate the varying strengths and limitations, the gifts and inspiration which the commmunity possesses. During all the rest of the school day the work and play are organized and adapted to the needs of particular groups and individuals, but for this onehalf hour the school policy requires its members to give their best attention, either as active performers or as audience, to a community project presented to them. It is a duty and a privilege, and all are

expected to make each exercise worth while to others.

It seems to us that high school boys and girls receive excellent training and grow in the power to think clearly and to express themselves adequately when they succeed in presenting a worth-while Morning Exercise to an audience so varied in age and interest They need to organize their material creatively and carefully, to prepare it thoroughly, and to use discriminately all kinds of illustrative aids such as pictures, maps and apparatus. Yet a really successful exercise is characterized by a spirit of spontaneity which only such complete mastery of the situation can give.

The younger children have the example and incentive of the older ones to inspire them; and frequent divided exercises are provided so that the younger ones may have training in clear enunciation and an opportunity to present phases of their work which have special value to themselves. But the exercises which the younger children give for the older ones are not a waste of time for the mature part of the audience, since these exercises emphasize beauty, poetry and dramatic expression, or some experience common to the life and interest of all.

We have selected one classroom social group project to outline here as typical of our best practice. It is a weaving project in the second grade. Cloth making is Cloth making is one of the industries selected for study in this grade. It is chosen, first, because of its natural relation to the story of human progress; and second, because of its rich and varied opportunity for experimental, manual, artistic, and dramatic experience. As a background for this work the children study many primitive cloth makers of the world-shepherd life in many lands, with all its wealth of story, poetry, music and art. They go on excursions to the Field Museum, the Art Institute and to shops to study beautifully woven cloth and tapestries. Every year the children of the second grade make looms in the

shop and weave some useful articlesometimes bags for gifts to their mothers; one time rugs for the kindergarten children to sit upon, and at another time units of a large rug for the principal's office. This latter project we will attempt by outline to describe. The rug was given to the the principal with a book of letters and illustrations showing just how the work was accomplished. We hope that the content of these letters outlined in topics will help to give a meager idea of the scope of the work.

Letter 1.-States the use and purpose of the rug.

Letter 2.-Tells of visit to principal's office to determine the proper color for the rug.

Letter 3.-Describes making of the loom in the shop, reasons for its size, to meet necessary conditions, as size of the rug, etc.

Letter 4.-States that the children of the grade wanted a picture of sheep in corners of the rug.

Letter 5.-States how "big sister" in the

senior class selected certain blackboard pictures and showed children how to draw them to scale for weaving.

Letter 6.-Describes visit to zoo and tells how keeper pulled wool from camel's back. This letter was illustrated with picture of the camel and keeper. Letter 7.-Describes how wool was washed and dried and how an Italian woman came from Hull House to spin and card the camel's wool. Letter 8.-Tells of a gift to the grade of a sheep skin and the cleansing of the wool.

Letter 9.-Tells of the carding and spinning of this wool for weaving into the

rug.

The next four letters tell how the four colors in the rug were made-how the brown was made from a dye made from walnut shells, the orange yarn from dye of onion skins, and also the processes for making the green and blue dyes.

The book is illustrated with photographs taken during the development of the project of the children as they visited the zoo, of the carding and cleaning processes, with original illustrations, poems and stories. It will be evident to anyone who has had experience with children how rich this project was in delightful activity of all kinds and how strong was the demand for technique, for reading and writing, for measuring in many units, for careful experiment in many directions and for art expression - and how satisfying the achievement. In fact these children who are now three years away from this experience never come into the office of the principal without a look of satisfaction and a vivid memory of happy hours of co-operative work. The result of their labor is a treasured object. It is crude and childlike in workmanship, but it is genuine creative expression which I am sure left these children on a higher level in power and knowledge and skill, and best of all it left them with the eager desire for further experience in kind.

In addition to the community social project and the classroom group project there are self-actuated and voluntary group projects which are of great value both to the school and the individual group members.

assumes both literary and financial responsibility and voluntarily includes elementary school contributions as having something valuable and interesting to give to a high school publication.

A third very valuable source of social activity is the Forum. This is a club, meeting one evening a month. It is open to all members of the high school and in it the members divide themselves into eight groups, according to their particular interests or gifts, as follows: Science Group Literature Group Dramatic Group Debating Group

Music Group

Glee Club Group
Art Group

Biography Group

Certain groups present a program each meeting. There are faculty advisors who censor the programs after these meetings, but it is essentially a self-directed high school project.

The student government organization is undoubtedly the most educative student undertaking in the school. It involves great freedom balanced by equally great responsibility for the welfare of the school. It cannot be even briefly described within the limits of our space, but since most of its important work is done through elective, appointive or voluntary committees, it should head any list of group activities which have proved to have outstanding values and social significance in educating our children in the qualities of good citizenship.

Such a project is that of the Weekly, a four-page school paper which is issued every Monday by a voluntary staff of high school pupils. All the contents are composed, the type set up, and the work done by the pupils themselves. There is a faculty advisor who censors the paper only after it is published. The history of this activity appears in a small pamphlet which the 1924 editor contributed to the school. It tells of a unique experience of the 1924 staff which printed and issued bonds and bought with the proceeds an adequate printing press for the Weekly such as the Morning Exercise, the Weekly, Student

work.

Another such project is the school Record, very similar to other high school annuals. It is unique in that the staff

Other examples of our group method of organization which have proved of great value to the school are the Christmas community project-the Santa Claus Toy Shop-and the fall community project-the County Fair. These activities* involve the parent body as well as the faculty and the children of the school and are far reaching forces in furthering social

*A number of the group projects mentioned above, Government, the Toy Shop, etc., are described in full in the Francis Parker School publications, Studies in Education, and in small pamphlets prepared by various student groups. These may all be obtained by anyone interested from the Francis W. Parker School Press.

education and intelligent and useful co-operation.

limited that he can have little judgment in regard to the future value of his studies. . . . If in youth the child has felt the warm glow of real interest, the spark en

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future study. If the child finds today good enough, tomorrow will be better.

The following quotations from three gendered will become the inspiration of long years of great leaders in educational progress seem to me to sum up and give satisfying expression to our school's beliefs principle and method:

Dr. Dewey says:

in

I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child's capacities, interests, and habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually interpreted—we must know what they mean. They must be translated into terms of their social equivalents-into terms of what they mean in the way of social service. . . The school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated; that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. I believe that the school must represent present life-life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground. . . . I believe that the ideas result from action. . . . . To attempt to develop the reasoning powers, the powers of judgment, without reference to the selection and arrangement of means in action, is the fundamental fallacy in our present methods of dealing with this matter As a result we present the child with arbitrary symbols. Symbols are a necessity in mental development but they have their place as tools for economy of effort. Presented by themselves they are a mass of meaningless and arbitrary ideas imposed from without.

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Dr. Kilpatrick says tersely:

Education should not emphasize acquiring fixed-inadvance subject-matter to be used at some later time, typically in adult life. Education should function daily in complete and happy living.

Colonel Parker says:

The child lives in the present. His experience is so

All three of these men in their writings continually put the "spirit" above the "letter". They placed the teacher-the inspirer and leader-as greater than the method.

Dr. Dewey says:

I believe that the teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals but in the formation of the proper social life. I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.

Colonel Parker gives us his picture of a school in these words:

A school should be a model home, a complete community and embryonic democracy. How? you ask. Again I answer, by putting into every schoolroom an educated, cultured, trained, devoted, child-loving teacher, a teacher imbued with a knowledge of the science of education, and a zealous, enthusiastic applicant of its principles. Where shall we find such teachers? They will spring from the earth and drop from the clouds when they hear the demand. We have asked for quantity teachers, and they have come by the tens of thousands. Now let us demand the artist teacher, the teacher trained and skilled in the science of education-a genuine leader of children. Nothing that is good is too good for the child; no thought too deep; no toil too great; no work too arduous for the welfare of the child means happier homes, better society, a pure ballot and the perpetuity of republican institutions. Fighting for four years, as best I could, for the preservation of the democratic ideal, a teacher of children for nearly forty years, I believe four things, as I believe in God—that democracy is the one hope of the world; that democracy without efficient common schools is impossible; that every school in the land should be made a home and a heaven for children; that when the ideal of the public school is realized, "the blood shed by the blessed martyrs for freedom will not have been shed in vain.”

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