LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066176389

Table of Contents

       INTRODUCTION

       THE OLD EDUCATION

       CHAPTER I

       THE NEW BASIS FOR EDUCATION [16]

       CHAPTER II

       TEACHING BOYS AND GIRLS

       CHAPTER III

       FITTING SCHOOLS TO CHILDREN

       CHAPTER IV

       PROGRESSIVE NOTES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

       CHAPTER V

       KEEPING THE HIGH SCHOOL IN STEP WITH LIFE

       CHAPTER VI

       HIGHER EDUCATION AT LOWVILLE [20]

       CHAPTER VII

       A GREAT CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM [21]

       CHAPTER VIII

       THE OYLER SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI

       CHAPTER IX

       VITALIZING RURAL EDUCATION

       CHAPTER X

       OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES AND SUCKLINGS

       CHAPTER XI

       WIDE-AWAKE SLEEPY EYE

       CHAPTER XII

       THE SOUTH FOR THE NEW EDUCATION

       CHAPTER XIII

       THE SPIRIT OF THE NEW EDUCATION

       INDEX

INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

THE OLD EDUCATION

       Table of Contents

      I The Critical Spirit and the Schools

      “Everybody is doing it,” said a high school principal the other day. “I look through the new books and I find it; it stands out prominently in technical as well as in popular magazines; even the educational papers are taking it up—everybody seems to be whacking the schools. Yesterday I picked up a funny sheet on which there were four raps at the schools. One in particular that I remember ran something like this—

      “ ‘James,’ said the teacher, ‘if Thomas has three red apples and William has five yellow apples, how many apples have Thomas and William?’

      “James looked despondent.

      “ ‘Don’t you know?’ queried the teacher, ‘how much three plus five is?’

      “ ‘Oh, yes, ma’am, I know the answer, but the formula, ma’am—it’s the formula that appals me.’

      “Probably nine-tenths of the people who read that story enjoyed it hugely,” continued the schoolman, “and they enjoyed it because it struck a responsive chord in their memories. At one time or another in their school lives, they, too, bowed in dejection before the tyranny of formulas.”

      This criticism of school formulas is not confined to popular sources. Prominent authorities in every field which comes in contact with the school are barbarous in their onslaughts. State and city superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, employers—all have made contribution to the popular clamor. On every hand may be gleaned evidences of an unsatisfied critical spirit.

      II Some Harsh Words from the Inside

The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the schools—[1] “A child is worse off in a graded school than in an ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, seems incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, and makes no progress toward a logical conclusion.

“When but one-third of the children remain to the end of the elementary course, there is something the matter with the schools. When half of the men who are responsible for the business activities and who are guiding the political life of the country tell us that children from the elementary schools are not able to do definite things required in the world’s real affairs, there is something the matter with the schools. When work seeks workers, and young men and women are indifferent to it or do not know how to do it, there is something the matter with the schools. Скачать книгу