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citizens of mature years, could come to this camp for a time every year even as gray-haired men to the Plattsburg camp so that this reservation used by day for the youth might be a community drill ground at other hours-a continuation school, a place where all of varying creeds and traditions might meet not only for entertainment but for the promotion of that higher community good which can come only thru the upward struggle of the many and not of the few alone to make a better Kingston and thru a better Kingston a better state and world.

COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION
ALBANY, N. Y.

JOHN H. FINLEY

II

A REPORT ON THE GARY EXPERIMENT IN NEW YORK CITY'

This experiment was inaugurated in February, 1915, when the school was reorganized in accordance with the duplicate school program of the Gary schools. In the beginning, however, we had almost no feature peculiar to Gary except its program. We had no extra shops equipt, no studios for music and drawing, no laboratories for nature and science, no extra playgrounds or gymnasiums, no library, no swimming pool. We had merely the ordinary equipment of one of New York's best public elementary schools.

PART-TIME

Before reorganization, the school had 1,250 children on part-time. Twenty-one additional classes were sent to the auditorium one hour a day for an alleged study period, and were thus reported as full-time pupils, altho they were practically on part-time.

Under the by-laws of the board of education four hours are counted a full day for children of the first year. P. S. 45 had 514 of such children. Adding these first-year classes and the twenty-one upper-grade classes using the auditorium, to the regular part-time pupils, we see that some 2,700 children out of a total of 3,065 had only a four-hour day in the classroom. The Gary program immediately put 1,629 of the children on a five-hour schedule, and all the rest-1,431 in number-upon a schedule of 61/3 hours.

THE GARY PROGRAM

This remarkable feat was accomplished by the duplicate school plan and by lengthening the school day. The This report covers the four months of operation under the Gary plan from March 1 to June 30, 1915.

New York part-time system is also a duplicate school plan; but by it only half the children are accommodated in the school at one time, while the other half are sent home for two hours. The Gary plan keeps all the children in school all of the school day. How this is accomplished in P. S. 45 may be seen from the following schedule:

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One half the school (or 36 classes) occupies the 36 ordinary classrooms all the time; but, as the academic work requires only 220 minutes a day, both the X school and the Y school may use the classrooms alternately, thus keeping the rooms busy from 8.30 A.M. until 3.50 P.M.

DIVISIONS

It will be noticed that each school is divided into four divisions. As there are 36 classes in each school, the divisions contain 9 classes each, as follows:

Division 1-grades 4B-8B

Division 2 grades 4B-8B
Division 3 grades 1A-4A

Division 4 grades 1A-4A

The program shows how each of the divisions of one school is employed while the other school occupies the classrooms for academic work. Thus, for the first period, Division 1 of the Y school is in the auditorium; Division 2 is distributed among the shops and laboratories; Division 3 is at play; and Division 4 is engaged in home duties, religious instruction in churches, library, or excursion work. During the second period, Divisions 2 and 4 continue where they are, while 1 and 3 exchange places. In other words, auditorium and play periods are 40 minutes long, while

Dur

shop, church, and others, have 80-minute periods. ing the next three periods the Y school occupies the classrooms, while the X school is distributed among the special activities as shown in the program.

PERIODS

There are 10 periods a day. All are 40 minutes in length except the 5th and 6th, which are 60 minutes long. One of these long periods is used by each school for luncheon and the other for reading. Reading and language represent all the time devoted to English. This amounts to 100 minutes a day for each class and grade, or 500 minutes per week. The subjects included under reading and language vary in different grades, in accordance with the emphasis demanded by the Course of Study. Thus, in 8B reading means memory, meaning and use of words, penmanship, reading, composition. In IA reading means word study, word building, phonics, reading. Language varies in a similar way. Any combination will do that fills up one hour for reading each day and 40 minutes for language. The combinations here reported can be improved, because a teacher who has the meaning and use of words should also teach spelling and derivation.

ECONOMY OF OPERATION

Under all other systems of organization known to me, each regular class has a teacher and all special work in shops is done by additional teachers. Thus, before reorganization, P. S. 45 had 72 regular classes, 72 regular teachers, 2 manual training teachers, and one cooking teacher, or a total of 75 teachers. The Gary program requires no more teachers than the school had before, yet it provides manual training for boys of grades 5A-8B (before only for grades 7A-8B); gardening for the same grades; pottery; carpentry; sewing, dressmaking, millinery and cooking for girls (grades 5B-8B); and printing for boys and girls (5A-8B).

How is this apparent miracle accomplished? By the application of scientific management to school organiza

tion. For instance, we have seen that the regular academic work done in the classrooms-arithmetic, language, reading, history, geography, music-requires 220 minutes a day. The teachers work five hours, or 300 minutes; hence by departmentalizing the work, we require for 72 classes, 15,120 minutes per day (220 X 72). Since each teacher works 300 minutes, we need (15,120 ÷ 300) 52 teachers. Fifteen of the teachers have two reading (one hour) periods a day; hence they can take only four 40-minute periods. This gives a teaching day of only 280 minutes. On this account we need two additional academic teachers, bringing the total up to 54. We have the auditoriums in use eight periods a day, and we need four teachers for this duty. Hence we must have 58 teachers to do the academic teaching and auditorium work of 72 classes. This releases 14 teaching positions which we assign to specialists in science, art, and the various vocational shops. The school program, therefore, requires no more service of individual class teachers than the ordinary five-hour school, yet it provides a rich program of study, work, and play which keeps the children busy from 8.30 to 3.50. The education of the children in P. S. 45 under the Gary program costs very little more per capita than it did under the old system, when 90 per cent of the children were on a fourhour day and had only the barren bookish education of the traditional school.

SPECIAL ACTIVITIES

I have already explained that the work of a Gary school is divided into regular and special, the regular work being done in classrooms by 58 teachers for 72 classes. The special work in P. S. 45 for the present is limited to the following:

(1) Manual training, (2) Cooking, (3) Millinery, (4) Dressmaking, (5) Drawing, (6) Science, (7) Printing, (8) Carpentry, (9) Gardening, (10) Pottery, (11) Excursion, Home, etc., (12) Auditorium, (13) Physical training (in gymnasium), (14) Play (including dancing, baseball, and

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