School Science and Mathematics Volume 22 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ...as we have in mind are quickly drained away by the higher schools at more salary than elementary schools can pay and many profess to believe that the junior high offers the only solution. G. Stanley Hall used to say that the right kind of teacher could teach the fundamentals of any subject to elementary school pupils; but if the teacher cannot be had the teaching is not likely to be done. No doubt the high schools too, need the superior teachers. Our St. Louis system of grading classifies the pupils of a given school grade in four sub-grades, each ten weeks apart. Each teacher in a standard elementary classroom has two classes sometimes in the same sub-grade (quarter as we call it) and sometimes in two sub-grades either ten or twenty weeks apart. Each such classroom has on the average above 40 pupils, often nearly 50. A considerable number of our schools have organized their upper grades under the departmental plan and thereby gained somewhat in teacher-efficiency. A few have tried to organize the two classes in a given room into three groups according to native ability and age rather than previous school record. This is the method of our Blewett Junior High School where with small groups in separate rooms good progress is no doubt made. Most of us in the elementary schools feel, however, that any teacher with more than 40 individuals on her hands at once in teaching elementary science has more irons in the fire than she can keep at the right temperature. Our grading problem is further complicated by the difficulty of establishing and maintaining similar standards in all the similar schools of a big city, so that when pupils transfer, as they so freely do, much loss and confusion results. We have therefore to work and wait not only for more trained and sele...