“ener 














THE BULLETIN OF THE 
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL 
PRINCIPALS 


OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
Issued Eight Times a Year 
Monthly October to May Inclusive 


FEBRUARY, 1940 
Serial No. 88 








BULLETIN No. 88 


Proceedings of the 


Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the 
National Association of 
Secondary-School Principals 


of the National Education Association 


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 
February 24 to 28, 1940 


THE CONTENTS OF THIS BULLETIN ARE LISTED IN EDUCATION INDEX 








Published by 


THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 


H. V. CHURCH, Executive Secretary 
5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago 








Proceedings of the 
Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the 
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 


SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
of the 
NATIONAL EDUCATION) ASSOCIATION @ <«<e": 


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 


on 


February 24 to 28, 1940 


fe 


Edited by 
H. V. CHURCH 


Executive Secretary of the Association 


Published by the Department, 1940 





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TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION 


NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 
SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 
of the 
Education Association 


The twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Department of Secondary- 
School Principals met in St. Louis, Missouri, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, 


and Wednesday, February 24, 26, 27, and 28, 1940. 


FIRST GENERAL SESSION 


The first general session of the twenty-fourth annual convention of 
the National Association of Secondary-School Principals was a dinner 
meeting at which 211 members sat down at 6:30 p. M. in the Ivory Room 
of the New Hotel Jefferson, St. Louis, Missouri. After a short musical 
program by pupils from South High School, St. Louis, under the direction 
of Miss Leontone Meyer, to which a few of the courteous listened and for 
which almost all applauded, the Chairman, Principal K. J. Clark of Mur- 
phy High School, Mobile, Alabama, the President of National Association 
of Secondary-School Principals, introduced the guests at the speakers’ 
table and the chairen of the major committees of the Association, who 
in turn presented the members of their committees. 

The Chairman then introduced Floyd W. Reeves, Director of the 
American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education, who 


spoke to the subject, “Youth To-day,” as follows: 


YOUTH TO-DAY 


Fioyp W. Reeves 


Director, American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education 


Twenty-five thousand secondary schools enrolling more than seven 
million boys and girls have an immense influence upon the future of this 
nation’s youth. To discuss with you, as leaders in secondary education, 
youth problems as they have been analyzed by the American Youth Com- 
mission is an opportunity which I welcome with enthusiasm. 


5 





6 Nationa Association oF SEcoNDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


I shall speak first of the present situation of American young people, 
and second of a program of action in behalf of youth. In each instance 
we shall consider in turn five major problems: (1) Jobs, (2) Education 
and training, (3) Vocational guidance and adjustment, (4) Health, and 
(5) Recreation. 


The Situation Now 


Democracy, to be true to itself, must labor to create the conditions 
under which individuals may reach their full human stature. Disheart- 
ened and idle young people cannot help but add to the danger of destroy- 
ing the very things we most want to preserve. The problems of youth 


demand immediate action. 
The Facts About Joblessness 

One third of the unemployed workers in the United States are young 
people fifteen to twenty-four years of age. There are about four million 
youth out of work. The rate of unemployment is higher for youth of fif- 
teen to twenty-four than for any other age group, and highest of all for 
young people between fifteen and twenty who are out of school and seck- 
ing work. Even in fairly prosperous times, young people are having in- 
creasing difficulty in getting started at useful employment. 

The facts of youth unemployment present an enormous challenge. 
There may be some people who look to a war boom to supply the answer. 
This is a delusion. In the first place, the most optimistic estimates indicate 
at best only two or three million new jobs for the many millions 
of unemployed workers. In the second place, the great demand will be for 
experienced workers. There will be less call for unemployed youth who 
have had no opportunity to achieve work experience. The remaining 


unemployment will be concentrated heavily in the lower age groups. 


How Far Schooling Goes 


More than a century ago the American states undertook an experiment 
never attempted by any nation in history up to that time. We set for our- 
selves the goal of universal free education for all our children. We believed 
that education—the ability to read and write, to know and understand 
public issues—was the very foundation of democracy. 


This was the American dream. We wanted to bring education to 
every one of our future citizens. A full century later, we are still far short 
of that goal. 

Half of the young people who have left school have not finished the 
ninth grade. Many of them have had far less than nine years of schooling. 
In America to-day there are nearly one million children of elementary- 
school age who are not enrolled in any school. There are more than 
three million adults in this country who cannot read or write. 





1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 


In our day mere literacy is not enough. Political geography and folk- 
lore history are not enough. The hope of understanding the complex social 
and economic problems of our people depends upon the wider and more 
realistic outlook of modern secondary education. 


The Need for Vocational Guidance and Adjustment 


In an earlier day boys and girls acquired occupational skills from their 
parents while very young, because the family was then to a large extent 
a self-sufficient economic unit, actually producing and processing on the 
farm and in the household many of the goods it consumed. 


To-day the opportunity for children to work beside their parents has 
largely disappeared. The father, and often also the mother, is employed 
in factory, mine, or store where there is no place for the son or daughter to 
help his parent. Much of the necessary work formerly done in the house- 
hold has now passed to industrial and commercial concerns which perform 
it efficiently and economically. The result is that the youth is deprived of 
his opportunity to work with or for his parents either at home or at their 


places of business. 


Thus the youth of our time must achieve their transition from school- 
ing to wage-earning, in most cases without the aid of work-experience under 
the tutelage of their parents. They must find their occupational places and 
accomplish their vocational adjustments largely as individuals standing on 
their own feet, and not as members of families. It is from this circum- 
stance that the acute need of efficient social machinery to facilitate voca- 


tional adjustment arises. 


The Health Picture 


Youth is the time for health, but we have with us several great 
scourges which prey most heavily upon the young. Tuberculosis, venereal 
diseases, death in childbirth, and rheumatic heart cisease hit their heaviest 
blows among youth. 


Less acute disorders take an even greater toll of health and happiness. 
Nose and throat infections, decayed teeth, poor hearing, poor eyesight, 
bad posture, malnutrition—these dull the days of youth and leave a weak- 
ened body to face the strains of adult life. Only six out of a hundred youth 
get regular physical examinations every year. Often those most in need 
of medical care receive the least. 

Health services are well developed in many colleges and universities, 
but in most places the service is fragmentary in the elementary schools. 
Often, however, it is better in the elementary school than in the high school. 
In this matter of school health services, the high school seems to be a 


weak spot. 








8 Nationa AssociaTIoN oF SEcoNDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


Facilities for Good Use of Leisure 


Physical recreation is universally recognized as a vitally important 
means of promoting good health. Healthful recreation, both physical and 
non-physical, is essential to assure sound mental and emotional adjustment 
to life, especially in the difficult period of adolescence and early adulthood. 

School athletic programs are still too largely devoted to the intensive 
training of the few who are least in need of physical improvement. Leisure- 
time camping tends to be restricted to youth in superior economic circum- 
stances. There is a general lack of facilities for building and preserving a 
normal healthy physique, and for acquiring the emotional and cultural 
benefits that come with participation in wholesome sports and allied rec- 
reational activities. 

Many surveys of youth show that reading ranks high as a leisure-time 
interest. The use of books, besides being a major form of recreation of 
high cultural value in itself, is also an important tool in the initiation and 
fostering of many other recreational pursuits, such as arts and crafts. 
gardening and nature study, and hobbies of a thousand kinds. 

Youth should have access to book collections broad in scope, and rich 
and varied in content. At present only the favored ones are within reach 
of public or school library collections of this character. One third of the 
youth of the United States are beyond reach of any well-stocked library. 

With the picture before us, we now turn our attention to what should 


be done. 


A Program of Action for Youth 


Having examined the foregoing facts and collected a large amount of 
similar evidence, the American Youth Commission adopted in October, 
1939, a statement embodying a plan of action regarding the employment, 
health, and education of youth. I shall give you the gist of that statement. 
I shall also discuss the implications of the Commission’s studies of voca- 


tional adjustment and recreation for youth, 


Useful Work for Youth 


One suggested solution of the job problem of youth is to raise the age 
of compulsory school attendance. The Commission believes that all young 


people should be required and effectively enabled to attend full-time schools - 


up to the age of sixteen. Above that age, it is recommended that a boy 
or girl who wants to go to work should be allowed to do so. Actually, 
many young people who would derive benefit from the training a job 
would give would be wasting their time to continue in school. 

There are several million more young men and women who want 
to go to work than there are jobs available for them at present. Ideally, 








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1940 | ProceEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 
our economic system should work so well that this gap would be closed by 
absorbing all unemployed into private employment. Certainly every effort 
should be made to bring this about. Meanwhile, the problem of unem- 
ployed youth is so vast and so pressing that the Commission believes an 
immediate solution requires the assistance of the Federal Government in 
addition to the efforts of state and local governmental agencies, Every 
young person who does not desire to continue in school after sixteen, and 
who cannot get a job in private enterprise, should be provided under public 
auspices with employment in some form of service. 

Wherever possible, work should be combined with instruction. Many 
experiments in providing part-time schooling in connection with part-time 
employment in public agencies have been highly successful; more atten- 
tion should be given to further developments along this line. Work activi- 
ties for youth might include all kinds of conservation endeavors, the con- 
struction of useful public buildings and public works, and the production 
of some of the goods and services that are needed by the young people 
themselves and by other unemployed. 

In making this recommendation, the Commission frankly recognized 
that such a program would add a large item to the Federal budget, as well 
as to the budgets of states and local governments. Further, it comes at a 
time when there is great need for economy and balance of income and 
expenditures. The cost will not, however, be as great as might be thought. 
The work would be not full-time, but part-time. Also, it need not be 
highly paid in view of the fact that training and a part-time study program 
would be given with the work. It is estimated that the expenditure per 
youth need not exceed four hundred dollars per year. Further, the contri- 
bution of these young people to the aid of their families would undoubtedly 
lessen the need for public assistance. 

Public work. for young people should be planned with special regard 
to its educational quality. The young worker should be trained in good 
work habits as well as specific skills. He should have a chance to try vari- 
ous kinds of work, to find his own abilities, and to receive guidance toward 
private employment. Most important of all, in the Commission’s opinion, 
is the need to give the young worker a sense of usefulness and self-respect, 
so that he looks forward to both his own and his country’s future. 


Better Educational Opportunity 

First of all, we can improve the quality of the instruction in American 
school rooms. Teachers need longer and better training. New textbooks, 
new methods of instruction, new equipment and aids to learning must be 
made available to the small and obscure school, as well as the larger 
schools. For great numbers of our schools, the basic aims of education 
itself must be broadened. Our schools need to look upon education as 











10 Nartionat AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


preparation for life in all its aspects—for work, for use of leisure time, for 
home membership, for health, and above all for citizenship in a democracy. 


When it comes to running our schools, the basic need is for better 
financed and more ably administered schools. Certainly the first step is to 
combine small independent school districts into larger and more effective 
units. More than half of the 120,000 local school districts in the nation 
support and administer only a single one-teacher school. The American 
Youth Commission strongly believes that if the total number of school 
districts in the United States were reduced to a few thousand at most, the 
quality of education for millions of children could be vastly improved. 


In some states, certain school districts have much greater tax resources 
than others. In some districts the amount that can be raised and spent per 
pupil is one hundred times as much as other districts can afford. A way 
to correct this situation is to provide state aid for districts of small re- 
sources. In state aid as it is now administered, however, there are two 
great needs. First, it must be distributed more justly so that the districts 
most in need of it actually receive it. Second, in a great many states the 
total amount of state aid needs to be increased. 


Some states can afford to spend more for their schools than others. 
The Commission believes America should be made as nearly as possible 
a land of equal educational opportunities. A certain amount of Federal 
aid will be necessary to achieve this. Such aid should be guarded against 
Federal interference and should be utilized for local needs. This distribu- 
tion should not be looked upon as charity from wealthy cities and states 
to their poorer brethren. Many of the children in less prosperous areas will 
later live in states and cities far from their place of birth. Their education 
is a national concern. 

If a family is unable to keep a child in school, public resources must 
be called upon to make this possible. Furthermore, food, clothing, and 
shelter—the bare essentials to keep life in existence—are not enough. 
School children need such things as clothes, books, and transportation— 
enough to give them some sense of security and enable them to hold up 
their heads among their fellows. Adequate student aid is vital to the effec- 


tive equalization of educational opportunities. 


The Commission looks upon it as a duty of the schools to prepare 
their students to deal with the issues of a war crisis. Students should be 
able to look at news realistically, to estimate the value of propaganda, and 
to find the kernel of impartial truth embodied in highly colored wartime 
news. The Commission sounds a warning that in time of danger there 
should be no slashing of educational budgets, because education is the first 
line of defense against the internal weakness that often proves more de- 








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ProcEEDINGS OF "TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 





1940] 


structive to a country than an outside enemy. Proper aid to education is 
not an emergency matter, but a long-time need for America. 


Coérdinated Vocational Adjustment Services 

One of the chief weaknesses in our whole present scheme of vocational 
education, guidance, and placement is that we have each of these functions 

undertaken by a multiplicity of agencies bearing little relation to each 
other. These agencies compose a sort of confused crazy-quilt of many 
colors, which, upon close examination is discovered to have its different 
parts only loosely pinned together or not attached at all, with many of its 
blocks entirely missing. 

From the standpoint of the guidance function alone, it is essential 
that three distinct types of codrdination be accomplished and maintained: 
(1) Coérdination of the guidance activities within a given school, (2) Co- 
érdination of the school guidance program with the guidance activities ct 
other agencies in the community, and (3) Codrdination of all guidance 
activities with the other services involved in occupational adjustment, 
namely, with vocational education and placement. 

The American Youth Commission has completed, in coéperation with 
the United States Employment Service, a project which involved observa- 
tion and demonstration of different experimental methods of codrdinating 
the school guidance departments, public employment services, and related 
agencies in seven communities, four of which were urban and three rural. 
The report of this undertaking is now near completion, and will probably 
be available in book form soon.’ 

Each of the seven communities investigated presented a different 
picture, with varying types and degrees of codperation among the schools, 
the employment service, and the other agencies. The main conclusion of 
the study is that although no cut-and-dried pattern can be molded and 
pressed down upon every community, it is supremely essential that there 
be in each community some one center to which youth can go and be 
assured of alert and efficient occupational adjustment service to the limit 
of the combined resources of that community. 

This does not mean that vocational education, guidance, and _place- 
ment must all be carried on in one building. It does mean that there should 
be a good placement office for youth, and that it should be in close codper- 
ation with all the other community agencies of placement, guidance, and 
vocational education. Whether the employment office for youth is in a 
school building or an employment service building is immaterial. The im- 
portant point is that in any event there must be codperation between the 
schools and the employment service and the other agencies of occupational 
adjustment. 


14 study of community programs of occupational adjustment, to be published as a report to the 
American Youth Commission by Howard M. Bell, author of ‘‘Youth Tell Their Story.” 








12. Nationat AssoctaTion or SeconpAry-ScHoot Principats [February 


Among many essentials of such codperation, two may be mentioned 
here: (1) An arrangement to facilitate the registration in the public em- 
ployment office of all graduates and withdrawals from the schools, and 
(2) Facilitation of the transfer of individual records from the guidance 
counselors in the schools to the counselors at the employment office. This 
last is especially important, because guidance must be a continuing proc- 
ess. The breach in its continuity between school and placement service 
can be closed. 

We shall not be able to boast of a nation-wide occupational adjust- 
ment service for youth until the foregoing aims have been achieved at the 
community level, and we may point to a national network of codrdinated 


community programs. 

At the national level, too, there are at least four major agencies of the 
Federal government among which the development and maintenance of 
close working relationships is essential. These are the United States Office 
of Education, the National Youth Administration, the Employment Serv- 
ice Division of the Social Security Board, and the newly-created Occupa- 
tional Outlook Service in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These national 
agencies, however, exist primarily to serve states and communities. They 
do not control local programs, but instead seek to facilitate their operation. 
They can encourage local codrdination, but it cannot go far unless initiative 
is demonstrated right at home in every community. 


Youth and the National Health 

The strength of the United States is the strength of its people. Youth 
is particularly important because in youth we acquire the health habits 
and the basic constitutions that stay with us through our lifetime. Hygiene, 
sanitation, and medical science have made sweeping advances in recent 
years. They point the way to a happier, stronger, healthier nation. 

Our job is to apply the knowledge we now have. This means bring- 
ing modern science, modern equipment, and modern services to the whole 
population. Local and state resources must be brought into play, and some 
aid from the Federal government will be necessary. Federal help is likely 
to be needed in working out some form of equalization, so that services 
in less wealthy areas may be brought up to a decent minimum level for 
the country as a whole. In any such national program, public and private 
agencies must codperate. Planning of the highest order is called for. The 
American Youth Commission is convinced that America needs a health 
program organized on a scale never before attempted in this country. 

An essential element in a large-scale program would be to provide some 
way for persons of limited and moderate means to meet the costs of medi- 
cal care. In particular, such persons are now unable to meet the emergency 
costs of serious or prolonged illness. What they need is some way of aver- 


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1940] Procrepincs OF TWENTyY-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 13 


aging costs so that the burden might perhaps be distributed evenly over a 
number of years and paid in regular amounts. 

Another way might be to share medical costs among a fairly large 
group of people, so that each person pays his share of the average cost of 
illness for the entire group. The Commission believes there should be care- 
ful consideration of the best methods of bringing about such results as 
these. For the poor, the Commission is convinced, the provision of ade- 
quate medical care must be accepted as a public obligation. In the long 
run the cost of neglect is greater than the cost of prevention or cure. And 
it falls upon the community as a whole. 

An immediate necessity is an adequate health program for all children 
and young people in schools. There should be regular physical examina- 
tions for all students, from the primary grades up through college. Com- 
parable facilities should be provided for out-of-school young people. Illness 
and physical defects should be detected early so that prompt treatment may 
be given. Sport and athletic programs in schools should be directed not 
only to the athlete but to the whole student body, so that those without 
special athletic ability may receive the benefits of regular exercise. In the 
school curriculum, there is a sharp need for more adequate instruction in 
physiology and mental and physical hygiene, especially at the secondary- 
school and college levels. 

Health should be a positive thing. It should go beyond the mere 
absence of illness. It should be a realization of the fullest possibilities of 
the individual. In this phase, especially, recreation plays a vital part. 
This is partly the recreation of wholesome physical exercise, of games, 
sports, and play. It also includes mental and social recreation—mental 
stimulation, companionship, and a chance for young people to meet and 
mingle with other young people in a wholesome environment. Recreation 
must be an essential part of any general health program. Schools, public 
and private ‘agencies, and organizations of all kinds must codperate to 
bring recreation to those who stand most in need of it. 


Recreational Opportunities for Youth 

The American Youth Commission recognizes recreation as one of the 
major aspects of the youth problem in this country, but has not as yet 
issued any formal recommendations relative to it. Therefore, in what fol- 
lows I shall be speaking for myself. I have drawn upon the conclusions of 
many leaders in education and recreation, and upon the findings of more 
than one national conference in which the use of leisure time was touched 
upon. 

Recreation in our day is a matter of public concern for many reasons, 
among which are the shortening of the working day and the working 
week, the multiplication of routine jobs offering little creative outlet or 

















14 Nartionat Association oF SEcoNDARY-ScHOOoL Principats_ [February 





challenge to ingenuity, and the splendid therapeutic and educational values 
that accrue from appropriate avocational activities. 


In fact, the boundary between recreation and education is difficult to 
discern. This is one important reason why educators should consider seri- 
ously the obligation that rests upon them to accept some responsibility for 
community recreational leadership. This is an urgent matter especially 
for consideration in small town and rural school districts where the board 
of education is the only local public authority now conducting any recre- 
ational activities. 


In urban and other situations where there are well-established in- 
dependent departments of public recreation, it is important that constant 
efforts be made to maintain and increase the codperation among all local 
recreational agencies, including the schools, the libraries, the parks and 
playgrounds. 


The park and forest areas of the nation and the states should be in- 
creased in area by the retirement from cultivation of submarginal farms. 
Ways should be found to make these areas more easily accessible to youth. 
They should be administered and staffed in such ways as to enable large 
numbers of youth to extract their full educational and recreational values. 
Among other things, this means nominally priced overnight lodges and 
camp sites. It also means an adequate staff of scientists, artists, and recre- 
ation leaders capable of explaining attractively the geology, botany, and 
zoology of the region. 

Both the Federal government and the states should establish bureaus 
of public recreation for the purpose of assisting, stimulating, and coordi- 
nating the ful! use of our magnificent recreational resources. From other 
quarters it has already been proposed that we have in the near future a 
great national conference on public recreation. I am confident that Ameri- 
can youth might gain much from the results of such a deliberative as- 
sembly. I should want to see educators recognize their obligation to take 
a prominent part in it. 

I have given you the essentials of the American Youth Commission’s 
program of action regarding employment, education, and health for 
youth. I have added some observations of my own on vocational adjust- 
ment and recreation. All this I put before you with confidence that you 
will do your part in leading the way toward a brighter day for the youth 


of America. 





Such interest was developed that questions from the floor kept the 
speaker engaged for a succeeding twenty minutes. 














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SECOND GENERAL SESSION 


Monday, February 26, 1940 





The Second General Session was held in Assembly Hall 3 of the Mu- 
nicipal Auditorium of St. Louis, Missouri. 






After a few announcements by the President of the National Associa- 
tion of Secondary-School Principals, he introduced the presiding officer 
of the afternoon, Principal Truman G. Reed of Lewis and Clark High 
School, Spokane, Washington, and member of the Executive Committee 
of the National Association. The Chairman then presented F. R. Wegner, 
Superintendent of Schools of Roslyn Heights, New York, who read his 
address. 










THE CHALLENGE OF RATIONAL EDUCATION FOR THE 
SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
F. R. WEGNER 


Superintendent of Schools, Roslyn, N. Y. 








We are an interesting group, we Americans. We are constantly seeking 
to invent something new to take care of our problems. We think we have 
it, and then we give it a characteristic title. Being distinctive, we give dif- 
ferent interpretations to the idea, and the title comes into discredit, so we 
make some slight variation in our original idea and tag it with another 
name. It isn’t long before we want to lose that name too. 
The whole process reminds me of a story told concerning an incident 
in a small town in southern Alabama. Two children were watching with 
much glee the antics of three small puppies that were in a crate on a 
station platform. They had so much fun watching them and they wanted 
so much to own one of the puppies that their father, went to the old negro 
station agent and said, “Mose, whose puppies are they? Can you tell me 
where they are being sent?” 
Mose looked rather worried. “I dunno, Boss,” he said. “Ain’t nobody 
know. They done ate the tag.” 
Because of the many implications that come out of the tags “progres- 
sive” and “modern” education, I asked permission of your Chairman to 
use a new word; namely, “rational” education. I am fully aware of the 
need of defining my particular use of this word “rational,” for I realize 
that it too is subject to many interpretations. 
Rational Education for to-day’s discussion, will mean the application 
of common everyday horse sense to the solution of the problems that con- 
front us in the secondary schools. 

























15 


16 Narttonat Association or Seconpary-ScHoot Principats_ [| February 


We will constantly ask ourselves: Why are we doing these things? 
Are they the best things that we can do for the pupils in our schools? 
For the same reason, I am going to try to avoid the use of what some 
people call “pedagogical and pedantic verbiage,” and attempt to make 
what I have to say at least intelligible to myself. 

During the last year, two rather widespread and important surveys 
of secondary education made their reports. I refer to the Codperative Study 
of Secondary-School Standards and to the Regents Inquiry into the Char- 
acter and Costs of Public Education in the State of New York. An exami- 
nation of those reports show that the problems of the secondary schools 
in New York State are very similar to those of the rest of the country. 

Within the last few days we have received, from our own National 
Association, Bulletin No. 85, entitled “That All May Learn.” I believe 
this Bulletin to be one of the most significant contributions made by our 
Association. However, I am personally troubled by the implication that 
there is a special group within our schools that is EDUCATIONALLY 
NEGLECTED. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that there is not 
a single class or group within an American high school to-day that is not, 
in one sense or another, educationally neglected, and let me add further 
that I do not believe that the secondary school will ever be set up that 
will entirely meet this challenge. Of course, in the light of what we thought 
was good for a student in high school, we have met our own objectives. 

The following sentences are taken out of Chapter One in our own 


Bulletin, 


“That All May Learn”: 

“As the American secondary school faces the future, the greatest prob- 
lem of its organization and administration as well as of its instructional 
program is concerned with providing adequate and appropriate education 
for all the children of all the people, and its supreme test will be met in 
the degree to which it succeeds at providing functional positive education 
for all youth. It is certain that the existence of the American secondary 
school and quite possibly the existence of the American society will rise 
or fall as this test is, or is not, made.” 

The problem of the American secondary school is concerned with 
“adequate and appropriate education”—adequate for the individual’s life 
needs and appropriate for the society in which he lives. 

What is this adequacy? A person having an adequate education will 
be able to read with understanding and be able to convey his ideas in 
writing. We know that many high-school students do not have that facility 
when they begin the ninth grade. We also know that some of them do not 
have it when they leave the twelfth grade, or when they leave school. We 
have assumed that children could read when they came to the ninth grade, 








1940] ProceEDINGs or TweNTy-FourTH ANNUAL MEETING 17 


and I believe this assumption has limited to a great degree our efforts in 
providing further instruction in this field. In other words, we still need 
to stress the teaching of more and better reading in the high school and 
to continue our efforts toward better writing of the English language. 

An adequate education will also provide for the ability to carry on 
the fundamental processes of arithmetic and particularly to give some 
appreciation of relative values and number concepts when we purchase 
goods, pay taxes, or receive wages. 

An adequate education will provide a student with a pattern of work 
habits which he may carry over into adult life. We have assumed for too 
long that the preparation of assigned lessons from one book resulted in 
these work habits. The ability to look up pertinent material from every 
source that is available, to select information that will result in a valid 
conclusion, to organize this material logically, and to present it either orally 
or in wsitten form, is a more important training for life. 

Again, common sense would dictate that the secondary school would 
do all that it practically could to equip a young person to earn wages when 
he leaves school. We will teach everyone to typewrite. We will give every- 
one several courses which entail the use of hands; a craft, machine work, 
or home economics. In other words, we should give an opportunity to 
synchronize hands and brain. 

As we have defined the word adequate, we could apply it to any 
young person in any place in the world. We have thought of increasing 
the adaptability of this young person for adult work. 

When we try to define “appropriate education,” we run into greater 
difficulties. We think of that for children living in the United States of 
America. Such education will involve their political citizenship, their eco- 
nomic citizenship, and their personal and social citizenship. Of course, 
these will all be component parts of the same youngsters, that will develop 
together; we will, however, speak of them as separate entities. 

The purpose for the schools in the United States is the training of a 
citizenry which will function in the process of government. That this 
training is for a democratic government makes it more unique, difficult, and 


important. 

First, of all, our school must be essentially democratic in its practices 
and its purposes. Students will be given opportunities to participate, not 
only in the student organizations, but in the determination of school 
policies of subject fields to be studied, and of approaches to be made in 
these fields. They will learn to make evaluations of their own efforts. They 
will evaluate their own schools, they will help determine the daily and 
annual program. Often they will assist in the library, the stockroom and 
the cafeteria. 








18 Nationa AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


The 1936 yearbook of the Department of Superintendence listed the 
areas forming the background of government which formerly neglected, 
are now being included in our social studies programs. The nature of 
government, the relation of industry and government, taxation and public 
finance, and consumer education are some of the topics listed. Too fre- 
quently these fields are not adequately treated in the high schools, in that 
we fail to make them realistic and functional. We must make the privilege 
and the responsibility of voting and participating in government a tangible 
and living reality to students in the schools, in order to train them as 
democratic persons. 


The job of developing an attitude toward the present economic struc- 
ture is an increasingly complex one. The education for participation as a 
wage earner should consist in part in acquainting the student with the 
present economic conditions in the United States. The degree in which these 
conditions are understood will depend upon the intelligence of the Jearner. 
But all should realize that jobs are hard to get, and that unemployment is 
a symptom of widespread influences which challenge the best thinking in 
the world to-day. At the same time, the pupil should realize that there is 
a dignity and service in all work, whether it be with his hands or his 
brain. The relation of employer and employee, both in the legal as well 
as the social senses are important concepts for youth entering upon work. 


We have been told that capitalism is undemocratic in nature, and yet 
we have seen the democratic method applied to many industries. We have 
been taught that the greatest social justice came through the simple life, 
and yet we realize to-day that some of the greatest social injustices are 
continuing in certain rural areas which should afford opportunities for the 
simple life. We have been dared to build a new social order, and yet our 
schools themselves have not caught up with the existing one. 


We have said before that it is our obligation to prepare young people 
for a life of usefulness. The high school is not the place to give specific 
training. That it is doing so in some cases should not confuse the issue. We 
doubt the wisdom of a great system of vocational high schools that deter- 
mine the specific training for youth at the tenth and eleventh grade level. 
It seems to me more important that we give more attention to doing the 
immediate job well. Slovenly work, getting by or “gypping,” as the students 
call it, are indefensible practices in any phase of life and particularly so in 
school. Our experience has been that these practices decrease as we increase 
the opportunities for students to determine and to participate in the things 
to be studied and the work to be accomplished. 

With the home the school shares the responsibility for the spiritual 
development of youth. I have no wish at this time to discuss the element 
of religious training, I am thinking rather of those things that give peace 








1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 19 


and appreciation and comfort to the spirit. I am referring to that concept 
of democracy that emphasizes the primacy of human values. 

Tangibly, literature, music, art, and fine craftsmanship will give great 
satisfaction, but more important even than these is the common, human 
kindliness that should exist between student and student, and teacher and 
student. These qualities do not come from courses of study, student councils, 
or even from athletic games. They come from an appreciation of personality, 
a philosophy and a determined effort to make them exist in our dealings 
with all persons. T. V. Smith in “The Promise of American Politics” 
pointed out “that personality is the center of value and that all social or- 
ganizations get their significance from their promise to enhance the in- 
dividual; (1) to guarantee the sacredness of his person, (2) to safeguard 
his rights and finally, to extend his opportunities.” 

What have we done to meet the needs of individuality in our present 
high schools? Too infrequently, we have made the college entrance re- 
quirements of the late eighteen hundreds the major portion of our high- 
school curriculum. We have developed specialists in English, and in his- 
tory, and in science, and in mathematics, and finally in the foreign lan- 
guages, who meet in their own associations and discuss how to teach more 
English, more history, more mathematics and more Latin. We have 
divided our school day into periods and shunted our classes much like 
piecework through an assembly line. We have built up a far flung and 
marvelously intricate system of objective tests and marks and spent hours 
in fitting human material to “normal curves of distribution.” 


Then we have studied carefully the effect of the teaching of this 
foreign language and these mathematics, and we have found and have 
reported, not once but many times, that boys and girls who “take” French 
in high school cannot speak the language; that boys and girls who “take” 
Latin in high schools make little or no use of the marvelous background 
that Latin could give in an understanding of our own English language. 
In other words, we have recognized for a long time the positive inade- 
quacies of our subject offerings and of their “functional, positive” results, 
and now we are beginning to do something about it. 


Generally speaking our efforts are directed in three fields: 


The intelligent guidance of each young person into constructive 
enterprise. 

A significant attempt to correlate the work of the school and the 
community. 

A complete reemphasis in our secondary-school curriculum so that 
it may be as effective as possible on meeting to-day’s needs. 


The word guidance has become one of those distinctive titles to which 
I referred in my opening remarks. It has as many meanings as a cat has 








20 Nationat AssociATION oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL PrincipaLs [February 


lives. And yet its simple purpose is to give friendly sympathetic counsel 
and advice. All this comes too infrequently from guidance departments, 
standardized tests, or file cards. These may have a place but we should 
increasingly question the filing of past histories as answers to present 
problems. What we need to do in our high schools is to leave a group of 
young people with a teacher for periods of two and three hours a day 
so that the necessary friendly relationship can grow out of a living together 
situation. 

Just what subject fields could be combined in this living together 
process is not the most important question. Experimentation and experi- 
ence indicate that the fields of English and the social studies and related 
art, speech, dramatics, and music lend themselves most advantageously to 
this longer period, but the important factor remains the personal working 
relationship between the teacher and the group that remains with him for 
the extended time. The teacher will learn the background, the interest, 
and the needs of each of these pupils and can bring in the more expert 
advice of other teachers and people from the world to meet these needs. 
He can direct the processes which lead to research and organization of 
learning material. He can enlarge the vision and the scope of each student 
by directing both the broad interests and the specific interests toward 
further meaningful horizons. Finally he can work objectively toward more 
reading and writing and can develop that intangible something which has 
been labeled how to study. 

Kilpatrick recently wrote that codperative activities for community 
improvement form the vision for the best education yet conceived. Our 
schools have studied about the community but only infrequently have they 
codperated in its activities. Community surveys, the introduction of better 
agricultural methods or the dissemination of health information are ex- 
amples of service with and in the environment. Our Seniors who look 
forward to teaching could well spend much of their last year assisting the 
teachers in the elementary grades. Any boy or girl who has the opportunity 
and need for part-time employment should be able to adjust this work to 
his school day. 

Youth hostel trips are rapidly gaining ground as educative life experi- 
ences. To my mind one of the most important services that could be made 
by the Federal government, is the establishment of youth hostel centers 
all over the country. At least two weeks of every school year should then 
be given over to a hostel trip by each student in high school. Naturally the 
preparation for this trip would entail much study and planning, but even 
more important than the subject-learning values would be the human un- 
derstandings that follow meeting other young people in different en- 
vironments. Many of these same values would come from a plan of ex- 
changing students in various high schools for several weeks or a month. 








1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 21 


Harold Laski has referred to that trait of the American people which 
causes them to ape the fashions and pleasures of the millionaires. | am 
troubled to see this evil spreading in our present high schools. Far too 
often a Senior girl is excluded from the senior dance, after spending hours 
in decorating the hall, because “No one asked her to go” and corsages 
and taxis are rapidly becoming the rule rather than the exception. These 
may be ticklish subjects to control, but economic or social barriers have no 
place in our democratic public high schools. 

Finally we need to analyze our present school curriculum in the light 
of how it may help young people more efficiently to carry on their work, 
leisure, home, and community activities. The subject is too great for the 
scope of this paper but certain glaring inefficiencies will be noted. 

If in the field of high-school mathematics we ask ourselves, “Can our 
students use the materials we are teaching them?” we would eliminate most 
of the present content and substitute important type of mathematical con- 
tent related to everyday problems. 


The related values of the study of foreign languages referred to before 
could more efficiently be taught through etymology and word study. If 
there should be the necessity of speaking and reading a foreign language, 
this may be learned by methods more effective of time and energy than 
any now pursued in the classroom. 

The history taught in our schools still deals largely with wars, with 
political campaigns, and nationalism. Some transition has been made to the 
development of man’s progress in civilization, but much needs to be done 
in the connections. 

In the fields of science we have too long confined ourselves to a 
narrow specialization without regard for the necessity of a broad under- 
standing of our present scientific environment. The physiology of the 
human being, earth, science, and astronomy are neglected areas in our 
high schools in comparison to the fields of physics and chemistry. They 
are not less interesting or valuable than these subjects. One answer is to 
functionalize all science in the beginning years so as to meet the questions 
of everyday living and experience. 

Perhaps by this time many of you would believe that I recommend 
the lowering of the fine academic standards of the high schools; that I 
would turn my face against the classic cultures of the past and make of 
this whole secondary school a preparation for realism. 

What are fine academic standards? We have given young people 
objective examinations to find out; examinations which by their very char- 
acter are limiting in their scope and in their effect upon the amount of 
subject matter to be learned. Are the valedictorians and salutatorians the 
personification of academic excellency? We know they are not. The 





22. NarIoNaL AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


standards which we apply are finally subjective, are these young persons 
interested in service to others—are they honest—are they ladies and 
gentlemen, are they acceptable in His eyes? 

I want realism; we all want reality in an understanding of what life 
holds for us and these young people in the destiny of these United States 
of America. And we want to hold the highest scholarship and the highest 
standards for the young people in our schools; we want each pupil to 
make the highest endeavor and the finest contributions of which he is 
capable. Further I would want our school so organized that in addition 
to living-learning a broad experience each pupil could concentrate in those 
fields into which his interests would lead him and into those fields that 
lead to preparation for his life work. 

If our schools can meet these challenges they may truly be called 


laboratories of life. 


DISCUSSION 
The Chairman then introduced Alice V. Keliher, Chairman of the 
Human Relations Commission of Progressive Education Association, who 
presented a portion of the film of Captains Courageous. This she prefaced 


as follows: 

A significant practical step in putting sound motion pictures at 
the service of schools has just been taken. The Commission on Human 
Relations has announced the availability for rental of the Human Re- 
lations Series of Films, familiar to many through demonstrations, ex- 
periments, and articles presented by the Commission during the two- 
year experimental period. 

These films are made from excerpts from famous photoplays, such 
as The Life of Emile Zola, Louis Pasteur, The Good Earth, Captains 
Courageous, Alice Adams, Dodsworth, La Maternelle, and Road to 
Life, and they present dramatic studies of personalities in action. The 
discussion of the personalities thus presented, by students and a 
capable leader, develops in the adolescent group an understanding of 
problems of human relations with which most of us at one time or 
another have to cope. 

Through the courtesy of producers and distributors the experi- 
ment is to be widened and the films rented for use in strictly educa- 
tional programs. It is understood that the films will not be used in. 
situations where admissions are charged. In order to be certain on 
these points, the Commission has prepared an application blank in 
legal form to be signed by the potential user of the films. Application 
forms and catalogs describing more than sixty of the films are avail- 
able from the Commission on Human Relations, Room 3867, 45 Rock- 
efeller Plaza, New York City. 











1940] ProcEEDINcs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 23 


The Commission has prepared booklets to go with the various 
films. These booklets provide study material and suggestions for dis- 
cussion. One copy travels with the film, but persons desiring copies 
for their files may secure them for a small charge from the Commission. 

For those who wish advice and guidance in the use of the films, 
the Commission is able to offer the services of James Mitchell, in 
charge of field service for the project. Mr. Mitchell, formerly of the 
Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, has used the films in his own 
work for the past two years. He has participated in the experiment 
and made careful study of the various possible uses of the materials. 
He is available on a travel expense basis to any groups who wish to 
have him come for conference and demonstrations. Mr. Mitchell is 
mapping out his travel program so that a number of groups can be 
included on one trip, thus reducing to a minimum the cost to each 
group. Those who will wish Mr. Mitchell’s advice during the year 
should write directly to the Rockefeller Plaza Office. 

Reports on the effectiveness of the films in the two-year experi- 
ment and the various ways in which they have been used, with special 
emphasis on discussion methods, are in preparation. As these reports 
become available they will be announced in Progressive Education. 


Then some twenty Seniors from Soldan High School took the stage 
and discussed problems of human relations and moral values presented 


by the film. 


Monpay AFTERNOON 


February 26th, 1940 
Dr. Kettner: What do you think of the way Manuel handled it? 


Girt: It. seemed to get results. 

Dr. Keviner: What makes you think that? 

Girt: Well, the boy evidently was pampered and spoiled and if it had 
not been for Manuel, he would have gone on that way. Jack’s treatment 
would not have done him any good. 

Boy: Jack’s treatment is all wrong. In the first place, Manuel was 


correct; he forgave the boy after the boy admitted he was wrong. Jack 
wouldn’t forgive the boy. I think that is wrong; I think he should have 


forgiven him. 
Boy: The way Manuel treated him, he let the boy’s own worthiness 


bring itself out; he left it up to the boy’s conscience whether he would right 
the wrong he committed. The boy had done something wrong, but Manuel 








24 NarIoNAL ASSOCIATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


did not force him to admit it before the crew; he left it up to the boy, 
feeling that if the boy had any good in him, he would own up to the fact 
that he had tied up Long Jack’s trawl. Especially the time they were 
arguing, he came to the fore, thinking, of course, that Jack would hurt 


Manuel. 

Girt: In the way that Manuel handled the boy, he showed him a good 
example; he was showing him what a fine character he was and what kind 
of an example to follow. 


Girt: If Jack had been allowed to go on and do what he started, he 
would only have put fear into the boy and the boy would have had hatred 
in his heart for this person, whereas, Manuel let the boy do what he wanted 
and be truthful and, therefore, he was better off for it. 


Girt: Although Manuel and his friends could not have mixed in 
society from one state, still the boy saw these people were very honest. 
That is the main thing and, as one person said, the boy came forth and 
admitted it, whereas, if Manuel had scolded him, he would not have ad- 
mitted, because he would have been so scared of what Manuel would do 


to him. 
Dr. Kevtner: You agree that fear would be very bad there. 


Boy: I am inclined to think that it would not have been such a bad 
point if Jack were to give him a sort of thrashing, because I think Manuel 
let him off so easily this time, it might happen that the boy would take it 
in his mind he would get off easily all the time, and it would not have 
served its purpose. 

Girt: I disagree. Jack’s treatment would have embittered the boy. He 
realized that Jack was a very mean type of person and this would have 
made him so angry, I don’t think it was so much fear, but he would have 
despised him so much it would not do any good, whereas, he realized 
Manuel was very honest and the boy was unused to such a thing. 


Boy: Wasn’t it fear that made the boy confess? It was fear that 
Manuel would not talk to him and he would not gain Manuel’s friendship. 
We do everything from fear. We don’t play with fire because we are afraid 
we will be burned; we don’t go beyond the speed limit because we are 
afraid a policeman will arrest us. It was fear, in a different degree, that 
made the boy confess. 

Boy: I think so much depends on the character of the boy, himself. 
You can find after several means of treatment which will be the best, and 
I think Manuel easily found out which was best for the boy. 


Dr. Keviner: Let me get this straight. If this were a different boy, 
you think maybe Long Jack’s method would have been right? 





1940} ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 25 


Boy: I think it depends on the boy, himself. You can tell after the 
first few trials. This showed it was the right treatment for the boy. 


Boy: My belief is that the boy was punished, he was inwardly pun- 
ished because he felt it inside, but if he had been hit, it would not have 
helped him at all. He would have done the same thing again and it would 
have embittered him against the man. 


Boy: I don’t think the boy, before he had gone out there, realized 
that he had committed a wrong. In other words, his set of values in his 
life he had before did not apply to the set of values he had now. When 
he tied up the fisherman’s trawl there, he did not think he was going to 
harm Manuel in any way —I mean harm Long Jack any way. He thought 
he was doing this to insure Manuel’s victory, he did not think he was doing 
wrong, and if he had been punished for it, it would not have helped. But 
as he was not, as Manuel let him go, the realization he had committed a 
wrong began to dawn on him and he began naturally to feel sorry for what 
he had done and realized he had committed a crime and had to pay the 
penalty, he had to confess and risk a blow at the hands of Long Jack. 


Boy: About this striking business, striking a little fellow for doing 
something wrong, my colleague says it might not have had any effect. 
Those who have seen the whole picture know this little kid happened to be 
a rich kid and he was probably spoiled by his father, by the fact he was 
never hit by his father, so if he was slapped a couple of times for some 
of his acts, he might not have been that spoiled. I think if he had been 
struck at his younger age, when he did rash acts, I believe it would have 
been much better for him. (Laughter). 


Boy: There are different characteristics in different children. Some 
children can be corrected in a way of talk, they can be talked to and they 
begin to understand by doing the right thing — in the end to do the right 
thing, while other children can only be taught by actual punishment. So, 
this boy happened to be one who had a conscience of his own that could 
be awakened by talk and by his own conscience, and so that way he was 
not one to suffer punishment. 


Boy: Speaking in general, if this form of education was started earlier 
in this boy’s youth, in other words, if he was sent out into the world to asso- 
ciate with other boys of his own age to a greater extent than he was, I be- 
lieve he would have realized before the time that he did realize that this 
was a bad movement and he should not have done this. 


Dr. Kerner: Let’s stick to this other point you have brought up, 
which seems to me very important to pursue, that you would treat different 
children in different ways. Let’s stick to this young man’s point. 








26 Nartionat Association oF SEcoNDARY-ScHOoL Principats [February 


Boy: According to what I have seen, there could not have been much 
knowledge on the part of Manuel or any of the crew as to the character 
of this young boy and naturally whatever they attempted would have been 
an experiment and the results would have proven themselves. Therefore, 
you can’t say that this might have done better than the spanking would 
have done, it is just a matter of opinion there, because you don’t know 
what would have happened if the other course had been pursued. 


Girt: We were speaking before about the subject of fearing, and some- 
one mentioned that he thought the reason the boy confessd that he had 
committed this was because he feared that Manuel would be angry at him. 
I don’t think so at all. I think the reason he confessed was because he felt 
a love for Manuel, because of what he had done for him, and although he 
knew Manuel no better than he knew Long Jack, his feelings were very 
much more pleased by this attitude of kindness than by Long Jack’s atti- 
tude. And so I think, since he is an example they picked out anywhere, 
that kindness is a better way of getting to a person’s heart and making 
them realize it, instead of being rash. He had a background that showed 
he needed to be spanked, but if he had been spanked, he would have turned 
into a little cynic and it would not have done any good. 


Girt: He did not think at first he had done anything wrong and, in 
my opinion, the worst thing you can do to a child is to spank him without 
telling him what his fault is. If Manuel had done that, instead of reasoning 
with him, the child would have become very bitter. 


Gn: I think the child should be given the chance to confess, if he 
has done something wrong, instead of immediately scolding him or up- 
braiding him. You may consider a thing wrong that he does not know is 
incorrect. Of course, the idea is: Which is better, a spanking or upbraiding 
him by speaking to him? 

There are different ways of punishing a child than just by speaking 
to him. You might, in speaking to him, in the very way that you talk 
to him, punish the child, but then again if you are kind to him and if 
you give him a chance to bring out the wrong that he had committed, let 
him say what he wants to say and be able to show you that he really has 
a character, that is by far the better method. 


Boy: I believe that most children will not wilfully commit a wrong _ 
if they know they are committing a wrong. I believe the fault is the adult’s, 
and so I say, what will he confess if he does not know that he has com- 
mitted a wrong? I stick to the point that I don’t believe in punishment 
either. 

Dr. Kextner: Let’s stick to that and go back and look at Harvey a 
little bit. We have either read “Captains Courageous” or have seen the 








1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTyY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 27 


picture. What set of values did the youngster have when he landed on this 
schooner? Let’s get the history of the boy. 


Boy: I think his set of values was determined on how much could be 
purchased for a certain amount of money. His father was very rich and 
he thought he could get everything he wanted through the use of money. 
I know he was expelled from school because he attempted bribery or some- 
thing, therefore his standard was a monetary standard, not a character 
standard or anything of good moral standing. 


Dr. Kettner: Then how do you relate that to what happens in the 
way Manuel deals with him? 


Girt: His parents probably gave him money, or he asked for money, 
but they didn’t care how he spent it or what he spent it for. What I mean 
to say, he did not have any confidence in his parents, because they did not 
show any toward him. If he asked for something, they said: “Go ahead 
and do it. I don’t care what you want to do it for.” But Manuel was 
different, the boy had a lot of confidence in him, and it was different en- 
tirely from what he had been used to. This hurt him terribly, I mean to 
go against a person like that, because as has been said before, some parents 
will say: “Well, my child won’t obey me unless I spank him or do some- 
thing radical toward him.” That is entirely wrong, because after all, as 
one of the speakers said, children are human beings and they will listen to 
you if you have something to say to them, and I think that is how Manuel 
was able to adapt himself so effectively toward this boy. 


Boy: It was said before that when he was at school, he tried bribery 
and he was expelled, and when he tried this act on the boat, it showed he 
had not learned any lesson in school when he was expelled. 

Dr. Kevtner: So what? 

Boy: And this talk did him more good than if he had been hit. 

Dr. Kexiner: I should not have interrupted you. I have not heard 
that point before, and it is so important. 

Girt: Being expelled did not mean anything to him, he knew his 


father could get him into another school, and he had no respect for him. 


Dr. Kevrner: What meaning did this situation have to this kid that 
being expelled from school didn’t have? 


Boy: Well, the first thing, he had been given a great deal of money by 
his father, and applying it to the situation at school, the reason he was ex- 
pelled was because he wanted to get into one of the fraternities, he was not 
voted in, so he tried to bribe his way and, naturally, he was expelled. He 
had no scruples, he just wanted to get his own way in any way he could, 








28 Narionat AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


so naturally he did the same thing on the fishing schooner. He didn’t 
know any better, he had been acting that way all his life. 


Dr. Kexiner: On this question of what this experience meant to him 
and what in this experience had the most meaning in his relationship to 
Manuel. 

Boy: What experience? You mean the experience of being expelled 
from school ? 

Dr. Kettner: No, his experience with Manuel. 


Boy: Everything we learn, we learn by our contact with other people. 
When you go to school, you meet people, learn their ideas, get contact, 
grow up and learn how to think. When he went to school, he never was 
friendly with anyone; you could see that in his relations at school. On the 
schooner, first he objected to having to do any work, then he objected to 
staying on the schooner; finally, he began to see everyone was doing his 
share and was honest and capable of doing his work. He began to see, 
when other people did that, he felt he had to do it, too. He learned by 
relationship, by contact with these people. 


You don’t do something unless you see someone else do it, there are 
very few new ideas in this world, therefore, his contact with these people 
changed his point of view. He was closer to Manuel, because Manuel saved 
him, but I think if any one of the crew had refused to talk to him because 
he was dishonest, he would have done the same thing, he would have con- 
fessed. 


Boy: I think this boy’s trouble was the fact that he really never had a 
true friend, that is, he never had someone who would stand by him, some- 
one whose friendship he did not have to purchase, and when he was shown 
someone who would stand up for him, he had a different kind of feeling 
toward him, something he had never experienced before. When he saw 
this, that people could act that way, I believe his true colors showed up. 


Dr. Kettner: What do you say to the other gentleman’s point that 
he would have behaved the same way toward anyone else on the boat? 

Boy: I believe if anyone had acted that kinldy and taken the same at- 
titude, he would have acted the same way. If, any time in his life, anybody 
had guided him out of something and shown him the right light, he would 
have shown that attitude. 

Dr. Keviner: What was there about Manuel that affected the young- 
ster, had meaning for the youngster? 

Bor: I would say that the boy had always wanted to be a regular 
fellow, he wanted to get into the fraternity, he wanted the fellows to come 
up and pat him on the back. Manuel did just that to him; Manuel came 


























29 





ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTy-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 





1940] 


up to him and he was just friendly to him, he treated him like his 
brother. That is what I mean. I think that is the attitude that Manuel 
showed. 


Boy: This brings up a very relevant point in to-day’s problems. Every 
time you read a paper, you find a column—take Angelo Patri’s column on 
“Relations between parents and children,” that brings up the point that 
Harvey really did need a friend, and he didn’t find one where he should 
have looked the first place, where he should have expected it primarily, that 
is his home. His father made no attempt to understand him, he was en- 
grossed in money matters, and he acquired a pampered attitude or veneer 
which was ripped off only when he failed in school, after his school 
teacher, you might say, had failed to rip off this veneer and reveal his true 
character, because of lack of understanding of his true character. It was 
only when he came into contact with an understanding person like Manuel 
that his true character was revealed. 


It seems to me people like Manuel are very singular and very scarce 
in the world, and this picture should carry a moral lesson to parents, if 
they expect their children to grow up to be upright citizens, they should 
understand them and associate with them more than most parents would 
do. 


Dr. Ketiner: Would you be willing to generalize on some of the 
qualities in adults that you feel go best to help youngsters formulate a good 
life? That is a big question; you may not feel you want to take it now. 


Boy: The one thing that I learned from this is the attitude the adult 
should have. Most adults, when they are teaching, they say: “Do as I say, 
but don’t do as I do.” (Laughter) Manuel had set an example to this 
young, spoiled child, and he had given him the one example that he 
needed, the example of scruples, of honesty in his dealings, and considera- 
tion of other people. Prior to this, this boy had thought only of himself 
and the way in which he himself and those closest to him could benefit, 
mostly he himself. But Manuel thought of others. He wanted to win, of 
course, but he wanted to do it fairly and squarely, and by turning back 
and taking the boy out of the dory when he revealed the fact that he had 
cheated, I think that attitude should be had more by adults at the time. 


Boy: I think the best quality a parent can have is sympathy and under- 
standing. Manuel surely was sympathetic and understanding. A boy wants 
to be understood. He goes to his father and his father says: “Tell it to 
your mother.” He goes to his mother and she says: “Tell it to your father.” 
Nobody understands him, they don’t want to be bothered. That was the 
trouble with this boy, his father was not sympathetic. Manuel was the 
only one who understood and sympathized with him. 














30 Natrona AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


Dr. Kettner: Would you be willing to say that most of the young 
men and young women you know want that relationship with their parents, 


they want to be understood and want to talk with them? 


Boy: Yes. 

Dr. Keviner: What about that element of fear that you talked of, does 
that enter this picture? 

Boy: Most children might be afraid of their parents because they dic- 
tate to them and don’t consider themselves equal to them. If they don’t 
do something, they get scared of it. If most adults would think about 
themselves when they were youths and consider that point and consider 
themselves more on an equal basis, there wouldn’t be much fear. 


Boy: What I have to say is this, I have a different point of view. 
Everybody here has been saying what a humanitarian Manuel was and 
how much he displayed his good moral background, but I would like to 
say this: Place yourself in Long Jack’s place, suppose somebody had done 
something to you, what would be your reaction? Would you want to 
spank the child or punish him in some way, or would you be willing to 
take it that way and say: “Maybe this will teach him a lesson and he will 
learn something from it”? Suppose he had been on Long Jack’s side and 
he had done this to Manuel, do you think Manuel’s reaction would have 


been the same? 


Boy: I think it depends on the attitude first taken toward the child. 
In the beginning, he figured the boy was bringing bad luck to the boat, 
he didn’t like him at all, he called him “Jonah,” but Manuel was under- 
standing and sympathetic to him, and Long Jack, since he had no feeling 
for the boy, his natural impulse, after the boy did something wrong to him, 
was to give him what he thought he deserved. But Manuel had a per- 
sonal feeling for the boy and liked him very much, and [ think Manuel’s 
type, if the boy had done that to him, would have talked to him and made 


him feel ashamed of himself. 


Dr. Kevtner: What does that lead us into? You say “Manuel’s type” 
and “Long Jack’s type,” what do you mean by “types”? 

Boy: Adults are the same as children, especially in their attitude toward 
someone. As I say, Long Jack didn’t like the child from the beginning 
and didn’t make any attempt to understand him, while Manuel was sym- 
pathetic and I think understood people. 


Boy: Getting back to the idea of punishment, in the first place we 
were talking about Long Jack striking the little kid, to give him a lesson 
and maybe he will do better next time. Long Jack didn’t have that idea 
in mind at all. He had the idea of striking the kid to get revenge on him, 














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ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 31 








1940] 


not to punish him for anything. But Manuel might have understood this 
and might have thought what he had in mind was better. Then, too, 
Manuel did not seem a very educated fellow, he might not have been able 
to figure these things out, and he might have done that out of consequence, 
he might not have thought that out. 


Boy: In my opinion, all of us have been talking about one person 
doing this and one doing that, to punish or reprimand a child. I believe 
the child has to have it in him, to a certain extent. You can talk to some 
children as much as you want, take them aside and speak to them, you 
can punish them, but some children are weak minded and can’t be brought 
over to that way of thinking. 


Girt: One of the boys mentioned before something about a wrong 
attitude and another said he did not think Long Jack was incorrect in the 
way he treated the boy. I think in his first reaction, he was correct. All 
of us are egotists and we don’t like to be hurt in any way, when it hurts us. 
Long Jack was an egotist in the extreme and didn’t care about anybody 
but himself. His first reaction was quite natural. If we will think of some 
of our reactions in the past, we may not admire now the way we reacted. 
After the boy apologized, he showed he was a scoundrel because he did not 
forgive him, he was not affected by the apology. It showed the boy was 
very much humbled, because he was not used to apologizing to anyone. 


Girt: We were speaking a few minutes ago about how children like 
to be treated by elders. I was thinking of the captain of the boat. While 
we like to have our parents understand us, we like to be on the same level 
and we like to figure out our problems. He asked the captain what he 
should do and he told him that was his problem and he and Manuel would 
have to fix it up between themselves, and I think that is the attitude parents 
should take. 


Dr. Kettner: Did you identify the captain with anybody you encoun- 
ter in your school experience? (Answers: “Yes”) Who? 

Boy: Some member of the faculty who acts as an advisor to the 
students, either the boys’ advisor or girls’ advisor. I think they have them 
in all high schools. 


Boy: Maybe the school principal. 


Dr. Keiner: What about the school principal; would you want him 
to behave as the captain behaved? Suppose you got into a squabble with 
the teacher, how would you want the principal to treat it? 


Boy: The principal should take a mutual attitude. Now, I don’t say 
that the pupil is always right, nor is the teacher always right, they both 
have their faults and they both have different ideas, so if their ideas happen 








32. NarIoNaL AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 
to mix or cross, it is the duty of the principal to not only—he does not have 
to punish the child all the time, but he should sometimes correct the teacher, 


as far as that goes. (Laughter) 


I think if the child has the right attitude and he did it unthoughtfully 
or did it by mistake, but the teacher just “flew off the handle” by mistake, 
so the principal should have a mutual attitude and find the real cause. It 
is just as much one person’s fault as the other’s. 


Boy: I say many teachers know they are supreme in the classroom and 
feel so, and they do not conduct high schools on a democratic basis. For 
instance, some teachers would consider you wrong because you have done 
something they don’t like, whether you are in the wrong or not. Of 
course, I admit—I don’t admit, I know—, I know they have to have dis- 
cipline, but I believe the teacher should look at a problem with an open 
mind. I don’t believe he should judge you because you have done some- 
thing he doesn’t like, whether it is wrong or not. 


Dr. Keviner: Which do you find the most powerful motivation: To 
do the thing that is important to a teacher who would behave pretty much 
the way Manuel did, or a teacher who would behave somewhat like Long 


Jack? For which would you work the hardest? 
Boy: I would work much harder for the teacher like Manuel, I would 
admire him more. 


Dr. Keviner: I know, Mr. Reed, we are taking a lot of time. It is 
always a great temptation when you get a grand group of young men and 
young women to go on. I have not attempted to pull this to any conclusions, 
I think it would be highly premature. I don’t know what these young men 
and young women think about these issues. I wish I could have them 
for a semester or two or a year or two years, we would go on and find out 
what motivates behavior; we could find more about the basis of affection 
versus fear; we could find out what these boys’ values are, what Manuel 
was trying to do about changing the values, whether you can change them 
better by beating them up or helping them along, giving them guidance. 


I would like to raise one question and ask them to talk to it for a 
moment. I would like to ask whether they think it is too far fetched to 
discuss this in its relation to the effect or connection with democracy. Do 


you see any connection there? ° 

Boy: I would say, limiting democracy in a school itself, I feel—and I 
am speaking from experience—that if the teachers and the school officials 
would let the students iron out their own problems, organize their own 
punishing authorities, and so forth, that all this petty argument and such 
things would disappear. I know in one school where this has been tried, 











1940} ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTyY-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 33 


within four weeks of this trying, all the punishments and all arguments 


disappeared altogether, entirely. 

Dr. Kexiner: You felt the students developed a sense of responsibility 
about it. Do you see other relationships to democracy in the large? 

Girt: I think it could be applied to modern conditions, and Long 
Jack’s “spare the rod and spoil the child” type of dictator, while Manuel 
being the type or representing the government that we have to-day, of 
allowing people to think out things that they want, not forcing them to do 
anything, but putting something powerful that will give us something to 
think about, while Long Jack was the type that put a gun between your 
- shoulders and said, “March! Or else!” 

Dr. Kexiner: I think if we had time—you may think that is a dan- 
gerously broad generalization—, but if we had time, we would orient our 
ideas into this large social framework, we might look at “Black Legion,” 
which shows what we have done with some of our foreigners; if our trend 
were toward a study of democracy, we might look at “Fury” or any number 
of materials of that kind. Or we might not use “movies” at all for our dis- 
cussion, we might build definitely from study materials. But I can’t help 
but think—I want Miss Amens please to stand, because she is the sponsor 
of these young men and young women, she is their social studies teacher. 
(Applause) She is apparently the Manuel type. 

This is the kind of exciting experience I have all over the country, in 
finding young men and women with this capacity not only to think in 
terms of the things we have given them ordinarily with which to think, 
but in a realm in which we ordinarily do not give them the materials with 
which to think. Maybe that is why they do it so well—I don’t know. 
(Laughter) 

But anyway, these films now are available; if anyone is interested, 
write to the Commission on Human Relations at Rockefeller Center, we 
can send date logs of the material, we have built study materials to go with 
them. Where the films have been based on things that happen in American 
life, we have documented them, have the newspaper clippings. We have 
done everything we could to find the validity and give the student materials 
to go with this type of stuff. Basically, however, this kind of progressive 
education is built on our firm belief in, and respect for, the young men 
and women in our high schools, and I think if we have that, we can solve 
all our problems mutually. (Applause) 

I have been asked by someone to ask this group how many times they 
remember a teacher saying they were wrong. How many of you remember 
a time when your teacher said that? 

Memser: The reason I asked that question is that only once in all my 
experience in going to school did a teacher ever come into a room and say: 








[ February 


34 Nationa AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


“IT am sorry. That was my mistake, not the pupil’s.” I wonder if they can 
recall instances. (About four hands raised) 

CuatrMan Reep: We have had a number of ideas presented to us this 
afternoon; none of them, of course, are revolutionary, all of them have been 
tried and are being used. They have relative values. We have asked a man 
who has been very active indeed in our Association, to appraise the presen- 
tations of this afternoon from the standpoint of sound educational theory. 
I know of no man who is better prepared. It is my pleasure now to pre- 
sent Dr. Francis T. Spaulding, Dean of the School of Education of Harvard 


University. Dr. Spaulding. (Applause) 


“AN APPRAISAL” 

An appraisal of the program was presented by Francis T. Spaulding 
of Harvard University. 

Dr. Francis T. Spautpine: I thought when I first saw the outline of 
this afternoon’s program that it had been very clearly and logically arranged. 
My present impression is that the program got almost completely out of 
hand, because this appraisal that I was to make has been made better than 
I can make it, by the young people who were up here. 

I would like to summarize, from a somewhat different and outside 
point of view, certain matters which occurred to me as I listened to the 
paper which gave us the initial view of this whole business and Miss 
Keliher’s demonstration. I should like to say in terms of this appraisal that 
the whole of the program seems to me one which may well deserve our 
careful analysis and careful thought. I can go on and particularize in re- 
gard to it. 

I should like to talk first briefly about the more systematic presentation 
of a point of view which Mr. Wegner gave us at the beginning. What 
Mr. Wegner said divided itself, as I have tried to analyze it, into two phases. 
He talked, first of all, about the aims which it would seem to him that a 
program of rational education would seek with respect to his aims as he 
stated them. I think very few of us would be in disagreement at all. 

He spoke of the desirability of a program of education out of which 
would come boys and girls who could read and write and use arithmetic, 
who had good work habits, who were prepared to earn wages for them- 
selves, who are prepared for citizenship and social relationships. He went 
on to discuss certain of the means by which he proposed in his school to 
attain those aims. 

It is with respect to those means, I think, that we may want to ponder 
more directly and more in detail than perhaps with respect to his aims, 
because we may be variously impressed by the value of the means that he 
suggested. Some of what he had to say about means would raise a question 


in my mind. 








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35 





1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 
I do not believe, for example, that the aim that he expressed of having 
pupils prepared to stand on their own feet, economically, outside of school 
is going to be very well fulfilled if we live up to his statement that the 
high school is not the place to give specific preparation for a vocation. If 
we live up to what he seemed to imply, that the vocational education that 
the school should afford means typewriting, craft work, machine work, 
home economics, among which pupils may choose and in which they will 
have a variety of experience, I think we should want to ponder that point. 


Miss Keliher gave us another illustration of means by which to 
achieve some of these understandings of personal relationships about which 
Mr. Wegner had spoken. I would like to raise also, with respect to Miss 
Keliher’s demonstration, a question that bothers me a little bit in the sense 
that I am not sure that I see the answer as to whether what she got with 
these young people was in the course of this demonstration she gave us an 
actual maturing in experience and growth in learning, or simply an ex- 
posure of ideas that those young people already had which they took 
pleasure in exposing, and which certainly were, from our standpoint, highly 
illuminating and educating. I raise that as a question rather than making 
the statement, because to tell the truth, I am not sure, and I hope Miss 
Keliher will be willing to say what will follow beyond this demonstration 
she gave us, if she had a chance to make it not just a snapshot of a group 
taken suddenly, but rather the beginning of a continuing program. 


I raise those questions as questions about which I, myself, would want 
to think. But I should like to point out that in spite of those questions, 
there are certain matters illustrated by what has been discussed and 
exemplified here this afternoon, which we may very well take to heart. 


The first thing that impressed me, both about Mr. Wegner’s dis- 
cussion of what a program should be like and about the demonstration 
that we have had here of one of the means for achieving the goals of that 
program, the first thing that impressed me strongly about those two is 
that they have laid tremendous emphasis upon our considering what it is 
that we want to get out of our program, and then moving as straight- 
forwardly in the direction of getting that thing as we can possibly devise 
means for doing. 


May I illustrate what that means in a different sense. Too often, we 
tend to assume that honesty, that an understanding of human relationships, 
that workmanship, that habits of various sorts will follow automatically 
from the conscientious study of the usual school subjects. I do not think 
that what we know about transfer of training will allow us to conclude 
any such thing. I think what we know about transfer of training will 
force us to the conclusion that if we want to get an understanding of 
human relationship, we must teach straight for the understanding of 















36 Nationat AssociaTIon oF SEcONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


human relationships that we want to get. That if we want to get the 
kind of citizenship activities in other directions that Mr. Wegner spoke of, 
we must teach straight for that, and in the means that have been dis- 
cussed and presented here this afternoon, I think we can see examples of 
this direct and straight-forward teaching that I have in mind. 


I see in what has been discussed here — I am still talking about 
means — a certain further point that we ought to recognize. Some twenty 
years back — I am talking now about this Association —, this Association 
was very much concerned with the junior high school as a reorganization 
in American education. The junior high school proceeded under various 
influences to become more and more widely established throughout the 
country until about 1930 there was a stock-taking of what had been 
accomplished and why the junior high school had, and it had, produced 
certain gains in American education. 


The junior high school produced those gains, according to the con- 
clusions from the National Survey of Secondary Education, it produced 
those gains in very considerable measure because it represented a new 
attack upon problems of education at that particular level, not because 
it was a three-year school, not because it had a particular kind of organi- 
zation, not because it followed this or that or the other special pattern, 
but because it represented a break with tradition, which allowed the 
people in charge of that school to begin again, in a sense, to think anew 
about what they would do about these especial problems. 


What we have discussed and exemplified here, this afternoon, it 
seems to me, represents another kind of break with tradition, which may 
be just as valuable for that same purpose, not that in itself it represents 
the way out, but it does illustrate a new attack upon problems to which we 
have in many cases become blinded through our following a more academic, 
more set curriculum. 


Then there is a third thing I would emphasize about these means 
that have been discussed, that is running through the whole discussion and 
whole demonstration we have had this afternoon, has been a concern 
for individual boys and girls, that seems to me to be of paramount signifi- 
cance. 

I could talk about that concern for individual boys and girls in terms 
of what it means, in terms of our democratic nation. But I speak from 
another point of view: In recent years, we have had an attack on the 
school, an attack which has taken the form of hamstringing the schools, 
through cutting away their financial support, which has been represented 
by what seemed to be a loss of confidence in the school on the part of 
the public. I am convinced that that attack has taken place because the 
schools have not been able, for various reasons, to demonstrate to the 



























































1940} ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 37 





people who have supported them that they are concerned with individual 
boys and girls, not with putting through great masses of young people, 
but with doing what needs to be done for this boy and that and for this 
girl and that. 


Now, in this discussion that we have had this afternoon, that concern has 
been paramount, and I would commend it as especially worthy of attention, 
because it seems to me that out of it, if at all, out of a type of concern 
for the individual, which shall make it clear that our schools, individually 
and collectively, are there to help individual young people, out of that 
kind of cencern, if anywhere, we are going to get a renewed confidence 
in the school, and renewed support for the schools, that we need. 


Those are the main points I would make, the positive points about 
these methods, that they do exemplify a direct attack to which we can 
very well give attention, that they represent a new approach to problems 
which may be brought nearer to solution because of that approach, and 
they do emphasize this individual concern. 





What we have had said to us and demonstrated to us represents in a 
sense only a fragment of what has been going on in this country in the 
last few years under various names, but in part under the name of 
progressive education. Just as these things that we have been told about are 
worth our attention, so I think it is fair to say that there are in other 
phases of progressive education other things that are worth our attention. 


We may not find in what some of the progressive schools have been 
trying to do answers to our particular problems; we may not find answers 
that we can agree with as effective means toward an end, but the progres- 
sive education movement has been a very great service in suggesting 
to us new means for approaching ends that I think we would agree with, 
means which in many instances are so provocative that we would do well 
to look at them and say: “Do we accept this as a desirable thing to do? 
If not, why is it not good, and what better have we to offer?” 


We would do well to impose on ourselves the burden of asking 
ourselves, in effect, as we compare what we are doing with what some 
of these progressive schools have been doing, to impose on ourselves a 
burden of proof that would come from asking ourselves: “Suppose we 
did not have the traditional curriculum, suppose we were not tied down 
to a conventional way of doing things, just what would we do to solve 
this problem?” And out of that question and the suggestions we might 
get, I have some confidence that we might come to a rejuvenation of the 
secondary-school program that will be extremely helpful. 








THIRD GENERAL SESSION 
Tuesday, February 27, 2:15 p. m. 


The third session was held in Assembly Hall 3 of the Municipal 
Auditorium. 

The Chairman was Oscar Granger, First Vice President of the Na- 
tional Association of Secondary-School Principals, and Principal of Haver- 
ford Township High School, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, who presented 
Francis L. Bacon who voiced the sentiment of the Association as follows: 


RESOLUTION ON M. R. McDANIEL 


At the request of the Executive Committee, Mr. Francis L. Bacon pre- 


sented the following resolution: 


That this Association record its keen realization of the great loss sustained 
in the passing of Principal M. R. McDaniel. 


Mr. McDaniel was a member of the original group which met in Chicago 
in 1916 and founded the National Association of Secondary-School Prin- 
cipals. From the first and extending throughout his life he was eminently 
active in all of the major affairs of this Association. 


In 1927 Mr. McDaniel became president of the Association and was a 
member of the special committee which consummated the amalgamation of 
this Association with the then existing Department of Secondary Education 
of the N.E.A. 


In 1933 Mr. McDaniel followed Dr. Rynearson, thus becoming the second 
president of the National Council of the National Honor Society, a position 
which he filled in distinguished manner up to the time of his sudden death 
this October past. 


Able, efficient, thorough, hardworking, he left no task or obligation to 
the vagaries of chance. Although a master of detail, his vision was never 
obscured by daily routine but ever penetrated to the hills beyond. His cour- 
tesy and patience knew no bounds, and his courage and faith carried no 


limitations. 


In the twenty-two years of his service, the Oak Park and River Forest 
Township High School became known throughout America as a truly great 


school. 


It seems peculiarly fitting that at a meeting of this Association, for which 
he served so long and for which he did so much, we should pause to do 


honor to his memory. 


38 





1940) ProcEeDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 39 


The resolution was adopted in regular form with the instruction that the 
Secretary send a copy to Mrs. McDaniel. 


Then the Chairman presented Charles H. Judd, Educational Con- 
sultant of the National Youth Administration, Washington, D. C., who 
read his address. 


CHANGES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION NECESSARY FOR 
THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS OF YOUTH 


Cuartes H. Jupp 


Principals and teachers of secondary schools have become acutely aware 
of the fact that there are enrolled in the classes of their schools many pupils 
who are resistant to the instruction which they are receiving. While the 
schools emphasize English composition, algebra, geometry, and foreign 
languages as essential, the resistant pupils are either unable or unwilling 
to master these subjects. Certain terms are used in the literature of educa- 
tion to describe the situation. It is pointed out that there are in the 
schools many unadjusted pupils. These pupils are described as slow learners, 
as “non-academic,” or as entirely unsuited to advanced education. The time 
was when pupils who did not readily fit into the program of the secondary 
schools could be disposed of by being advised to go to work or by being 
forcibly ejected. To-day it is generally known that employment oppor- 
tunities are difficult to find and teachers are reluctant to refuse pupils the 
opportunity to remain in school. Not only so, but compulsory attendance 
laws have been enacted in most of the States which require young people 
to continue in attendance at school well beyond the age of admission to 
secondary schools. Evidently some provision has to be made in schools for 
non-academic pupils. For better or for worse the schools have to get on 
with them. 


Some years ago a device was adopted which was thought of in many 
quarters as a solution of the problem of the unadjusted pupil. Vocational 
courses were organized in many of the secondary schools and pupils who 
had no liking or ability for the traditional courses were assigned to voca- 
tional classes. The experience of twenty years has made it clear that the 
vocational instruction program is by no means the solution of the problem 
of the unadjusted pupil that it was expected to be. The vocational program 
as it has actually been developed has proved to be quite as special in its 
way as the traditional academic program is special in its way. If high- 
grade skill in a particular trade is to be acquired, it requires superior 
ability on the part of the learner and protracted training. Unit-trade courses, 
accordingly, are no more hospitable to slow learners than are the traditional 
academic courses. 











40 Nationa Association oF Seconpary-ScHoot Principats [February 


The fact is that the appearance in secondary schools of a large number 
of unadjusted pupils is a social phenomenon rather than an educational 
phenomenon in the narrow interpretation of the word “educational.” The 
evolution of the American social order has made the secondary schools 
responsible for young people in ways that were never contemplated when 
these schools were first organized. In earlier times education was a minor 
phase of the life of an adolescent. The family to which he belonged helped 
him to get a start in his independent career by giving him financial backing 
and by using its influence in the community to find him occupational 
opportunities. Private industry was looking for recruits and was constantly 
offering openings, often attractive openings, that enticed young people away 
from school. There was active competition in the world for workers. 
During this earlier era secondary schools could very properly limit their 
efforts to highly specialized functions. These schools made no pretense to 
being anything except training agencies for small groups of highly selected 
pupils. 

To-day many families are quite unable to give their children any 
effective assistance in starting their careers. Private industry is unable to 
employ all who want jobs. The schools are the only publicly supported 
institutions that are open to all young people. There has been an enormous 
expansion of the pupil population of the upper grades of the elementary 
schools and of the secondary schools. This expansion is not an expression of 
enthusiasm on the part of young people for education so much as it is an 
acceptance of the one readily accessible opportunity available in an industrial 
civilization which has shut most of the doors that young people would like 
to enter. The schools find themselves under the conditions that have arisen 
substituting for the family and for private industry in the care of young 
people. 

The new responsibilities that have been forced on the schools have 
come with great suddenness and in overwhelming volume. There has been 
little time or energy for the internal readjustments that should have been 
made and are now seen to be necessary. Among the reasons why readjust- 
ments have not been made a number are readily cited. Teachers persist in 
giving courses in the subjects which they themselves studied in secondary 
school and college. Principals are compelled to devote their efforts to the 
multitudinous administrative duties that are entailed by a steadily increas- 
ing pupil population. The general public, unaware of the changes in the 
structure of modern society, has been slow to provide the schools with the 
facilities for the development of a new program of instruction. Frequently 
the general public has actually prevented secondary schools from departing 
from tradition. It has insisted that oncoming generations be taught the 
same subjects that were taught to older generations and that the methods 
and objectives of the schools be as nearly static as it is possible to keep them. 























1949} ProckEDINcs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 41 


The unadjusted pupil is a warning symptom calling attention to the 
necessity of doing something to fit the secondary schools to the new role 
which has been forced on them by social evolution. The fact is that the 
urgency of the situation is much greater than the symptom makes evident. 
There are many pupils in secondary schools who conform to the demands 
of the traditional program and thus escape being classified as non-academic 
or unfit for advanced education when, in reality, they are ill served by the 
instruction which is given them. 


It is fair to say that more than eighty per cent of the graduates of 
American secondary schools expect, when they leave school, to secure white- 
collar jobs. The curriculum which they have followed and the outlook 
on life which has been cultivated in them by the traditions of education 
point toward the professions or toward callings directly related to the 
professions. It is only after experience with the discouragements of un-. 
employment that these graduates discover that the number of professional 
positions in the world is far too limited to furnish openings for all graduates 
of secondary schools. The majority of the people of the United States to-day 
are working in jobs that are very different from those that the graduates 
of secondary schools hope to enter. The future will quite certainly supply 
opportunities for most individuals only in semiskilled occupations. If the 
schools are to serve the purpose of preparing the oncoming generation in 
a realistic way for duties that lie before its members and for success and 
satisfaction in productive labor there must be a change which will take 
into account both the unadjusted pupils and many others for whom a 
new type of instruction is required. 


The remainder of this paper is devoted to the suggestion of modifica- 
tions of the curriculum of the secondary schools which it is believed would, 
if adopted, do much to provide for the adjustment of this curriculum to 
the real needs of pupils. It is clearly recognized in advance that the program 
here advocated can hardly hope to secure the approval of all intelligent 
students of American education. Even if the proposals made are rejected 
altogether they may perhaps serve the useful purpose of stimulating others 
to suggest ways of dealing with current problems. Out of the discussion 
thus aroused, solutions of an acceptable type may emerge. 


The first proposal to be made is that the secondary schools continue 
and expand the instruction given in the elementary schools in reading. It 
is now commonly assumed that the elementary schools have given all the 
instruction necessary in reading. The fact is that a great many pupils in 
the secondary schools are so incompetent in reading that they are confused 
by the assignments that are imposed on them. Pupils fail every day and 
are recorded by their teachers as incompetent in history, science, literature, 
and other subjects when the fact is that they are incompetent in reading. 














[ February 


42 NatIonaL AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


Teachers note the superficial fact that knowledge in subject-matter is lack- 
ing but fail to recognize the fundamental fact that pupils cannot read. 
The scientific tests of reading which have been made in recent years furnish 
abundant evidence of the truth of the statements that are here made, 
The schools are doubly guilty in their failure to improve the reading 
of secondary-school pupils. They not only omit instruction in this all- 
important field but they employ materials and methods of instruction 
which actually prevent pupils from cultivating the intellectual independence 
that competent reading would give them. If pupils were able to read well 
and were given access to informing materials which appealed to their 
interests there would be no necessity of the kind of driving and threatening 
that is now typical of most recitations in secondary-school classes. The 
two new aspects of instructions here suggested should be carefully noted. 
The reading material offered to pupils should be interesting and appealing 
to their personal interests. The ordinary textbook is neither. It is a compact, 
highly condensed epitome of a subject that might be interesting to some of 
the pupils if its illuminating incidents had not been entirely omitted. Good 
instruction in reading requires recognition of the principle that one reads 
best in those fields in which one has personal interest. Under present con- 
ditions all members of a class are required to read the same passages and 
to sit through dreary class exercises in the course of which members of 
the group repeat, after vigorous prodding by the teacher, fragments of 
what everyone is supposed to have more or less completely memorized. 
If a course in free literary reading could be organized in every secondary 
school under a competent teacher a revolution would take place in the 


intellectual lives of young people. 

The demand that this course be directed by a competent teacher is 
not to be overlooked. The teacher here called for is one who understands 
what recent investigations have revealed with regard to the reading process. 
Skill in reading is a high mental achievement. Reading is not puzzling 
over a printed sentence. Reading is not trying to imagine what questions 
a teacher may possibly ask about a passage. Reading is not learning a 
passage by heart with the expectation of forgetting it as soon as the limited 
emergency of the recitation or examination is past. Reading is not oral 
pronunciation of words. Reading is interpretation. The teacher who can 
lead a group of adolescents to overcome the bad habits that are often cul- 
tivated by individuals in their efforts to deal with the printed page will 
change the whole course of the education of these young people. Many 
a pupil who is classified as unfit for an advanced education will turn out 
to be a competent, intelligent, independent learner. Many a pupil of small 
ability will find in some of the simpler reading materials that he discovers 
and masters both satisfaction that will transform the daily tasks which he 
must perform as a breadwinner, and illuminating information which will 





























1940} ProceEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 43 


contribute in untold measure to his effectiveness as a citizen and house- 


holder. 


Some years ago an experimental school in a university decided to do 
something for the neighboring public schools. It gathered a group of 
problem boys from these schools and, on the theory that they were hand- 
minded, offered them the opportunity to work in well-equipped shops. 
The boys continued in the shops to be problem boys until an astute teacher 
who had been put in charge of them discovered that the real trouble was 
that they could not read and were full of rebellion against: any institution 
which was typically a reading institution. They were dissatisfied also with 
the modern world in which success is so largely conditioned by ability to 
get ideas through reading. Their feeling of non-belongingness led them 
to smash everything in the abhorred environment. A little understanding 
of psychology made their attitude wholly intelligible. A remedial course 
in reading tamed most of them in an astonishingly short time. 


By way of summary of this first suggestion, it may be said that a 
course in interesting reading appropriate to the personal interests of the 
pupils is recommended to occupy as much time in the secondary-school 
curriculum as is necessary to make the pupils independent readers. What 
is needed to equip this course is a library with books on exploration, 
mechanics, and social problems, and a teacher who has made a study of 
what is known to educational psychology about the reading process. 


The second suggestion is that a course in mathematics be organized 
which is not arithmetic, algebra, or demonstrative geometry but a well- 
arranged combination of these subjects. If this course may be described 
in terms that contrast it with present-day secondary-school mathematics, 
one may say that it deals with the principles of mathematics that apply to 
ordinary life rather than with professional mathematics. It will include 
enough constructive geometry to appeal to the visual interests in space 
forms with which all normal people are born. It will use liberally statistical 
charts of the kind now commonly seen in every newspaper. It will teach 
that whatever is done with one side of an equation must be done with 
the other side if the equation is to remain true. It will make clear the fact 
that an unknown quantity can be mathematically manipulated in many of 
the ways that a known quantity can be manipulated. In short, this course 
will be at one and the same time a simple exploration of mathematical 
principles, an analysis of space, a review of arithmetic, and a preparation 
for precise thinking. 

There was a colony of Greeks who settled in southern Italy long cen- 


turies ago. They labored in vineyards and prospered. They spent the time 
when they were not engaged in toil in mathematical speculations. Their 








44 Nationat AssociaTIon oF SeconpARY-ScHoot Princrpats [February 


leader, Pythagoras, discovered and demonstrated many interesting geomet- 
rical truths, among them, the truth about the relation of the sides of right- 
angle triangles to one another. He and his followers also made discoveries 
about number relations. They interested themselves in odd numbers and 
even, and in prime numbers. It is certainly not to be believed that this 
Greek colony required compulsion to carry on its thinking. As one looks 
back, one is forced to conclude that something has been lost between 
ancient times and the present —- something that might be brought into 
being again if mathematics teachers were enthusiastic leaders rather than 


task masters. 


The two suggestions that have been made about teaching reading 
and making mathematics interesting are not very revolutionary because it 
is conceivable that the new courses could be justified without breaking 
entirely with tradition. The third suggestion is not so easy to fit into the 
existing pattern although it may possibly be bootlegged in as a course in 
history. But quite simply, this third suggestion is that someone prepare 
a course on inventions. The course here suggested is recommended not 
merely because of the informative value of its contents but also because of 
its relation to pupil morale. The American people are the most inventive 
people in the world, but curiously enough they have never reported this 
fact to their young people. Young people get a picture of civilization as 
a kind of accidental outcome of processes that push one another along in 
the march of time. The idea that it is entirely possible for even an ordinary 
person to develop new ideas and devise new contrivances does not loom 
large in the schools. The fact is, of course, that a great many people who 
were in their day non-academic have by thinking, experimenting, and in- 


venting put the world greatly in their debt. 


An anthropologist commenting on the age when men invented the 
bow and arrow and the later age when they invented the alphabet said 
he regretted that he lived at a time when the greatest human inventions 
had apparently been made. “It may be,” he said, “that some modern in- 
vention will affect human life as vitally as did the bow and arrow or the 


alphabet, but probably not.” 


If someone interested in really exciting pupils would prepare not a 
single paragraph to be buried in a book on the history of wars and rulers 
but a whole course on inventions, there would be supplied to pupils an 
intellectual uplift of the first order of importance. One can imagine the 
interest that would attach to a course which day by day recounted how 
new forward steps were taken by the human race. A course of this kind 
might have some difficulty getting a number in the program of an orthodox 
department of history or getting recognition on the certificate of admission 
to a liberal-arts college, but it would serve a real educational purpose. 











1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 45 


The idea that an interesting course in history might be prepared to 
replace political and dynastic courses which are uninteresting to non- 
academic pupils and to many others also leads to a closely related line of 
thinking. It is generally recognized that in spite of the fact that young 
people are growing up in a scientific age they commonly find courses in 
secondary-school science lacking in inspiration. The fact is that much of 
the science which is rehearsed in secondary-school recitations is so en- 
cyclopedic in its form of presentation and so impersonally factual in its 
content that pupils have a hard time remembering what they are sup- 
posed to learn long enough to reproduce it on examination. Why do 
teachers of science leave out of their teaching the incidents that might 
be drawn from the history of scientific discoveries? The answer to this 
question is that it is conceived to be necessary to cover a great deal of 
ground and to hold rigidly to the logic of the mature sciences. All mature 
sciences had to go through the process of maturing. Bit by bit chemistry 
and biology have grown through the efforts of explorers who spent much 
time in fruitless wandering before they made the discoveries now recorded 
in textbooks. Science in the making is more likely to be understood by 
young minds than science in its finished form. Some teacher working under 
the friendly guidance of a principal who knows that he has a problem in 
his non-academic pupils should be induced to develop a course in biology 
which tells in detail how some of the discoveries in this field were made. 
The number of scientific conclusions reported in such a course will un- 
doubtedly be fewer than those now rapidly canvassed in courses in biology, 
but each fact will be given its background of scientific method and its 
relation to human effort. It is suggested that this new kind of instruction 
in science begin in biology, because physics and chemistry are so well 
established that they are not likely to be represented by teachers who are 
tolerant of non-academic pupils and of immature science. 


Four suggestions have been offered, all of which if accepted would 
make the first year of secondary schooling interesting if not highly academic. 
In case a given school system is fortunate enough to have a junior high 
school and in case the system is free enough from the bonds of tradition 
to avoid the feeling that it must do just what has always been done with 
secondary-school pupils, the four courses suggested might be expanded so 
as to make the junior high-school curriculum interesting throughout. 


There can be no blinking the fact that the program here suggested 
is going to have a hard time establishing itself. The materials for such 
courses as are here described are not at hand. They will have to be made. 
Teachers are preoccupied, often satisfied with what they are doing, devoted 
to academic standards, and loath to make any changes. Publishers will not 
set authors at work preparing manuscripts on new and strange courses be- 








46 Nartionat Association of SeconDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


cause publishers are not sure that they will be able to sell new kinds of 
books to teachers who do not want to change their courses. 


In spite of the difficulties in the way of developing new courses there 
are evidences of progress. A promising new course which will in the near 
future undoubtedly find its way into the secondary-school curriculums of 
many States is a course in conservation —conservation of physical and 
human resources. Arkansas has a law requiring schools to teach such a 
course. A joint commission of the Progressive Education Association and 
the National Education Association is at work on instructional material 
on what it calls “regional planning.” The term “regional planning” is 
borrowed from a movement that is well under way in many parts of the 
country and in the Federal Government. A number of the States have 
what are known as State planning boards. The Federal Government has 
a National Resources Planning Board. These boards make a study of land 
and its uses, of water, forests, and mineral resources. Some planning boards 
have gone beyond the study of physical resources and have investigated 
population, health resources, and the equipment provided in institutions 
of learning for the conduct of scientific investigations. In some sections of 
the country several of the State planning boards have pooled their staffs 
and their interests and are operating on a regional basis. The Progressive 
Education Association and the National Education Association are organ- 
izing for the coming summer two centers, one in the State of Washington 
and one in North Carolina, where a number of teachers and research 
workers will come together and prepare materials of instruction on con- 
servation and planning. These materials will supplement the courses given 
in elementary schools in geography and will inject into secondary schools 
new practical courses which will prepare the next generation to avoid the 
destruction and waste of natural and human resources of which the 
American people have unfortunately in the past been guilty. There can 
be no doubt that such instructional materials as are being prepared will be 
more likely to hold the attention of non-academic pupils than do courses 
which deal with remote facts that do not appeal to pupils as having any 
bearing on their lives. 


Somewhere in the secondary-school experiences of pupils there is a 
place for instruction on a whole series of personal problems. Young people 
of secondary-school age are slowly finding their way into adult life. They 
are becoming aware, as they could not earlier, of problems that must be 
solved if they are to be successful. How does one get on with other people? 
How does one manage one’s financial affairs? What is the importance of 
keeping physically fit? What is a proper diet? What rest and recreation 
does one need? What are the simple facts which psychology can teach 
without becoming highly technical about ways of study and about keeping 
one’s mental balance? What kind of self-control must one exercise if one 


























ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTyY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 47 





1940] 


is to keep a job? What kind of contribution should one be prepared to 


make to family and community life? 


Some secondary schools are providing instruction on personal problems 
by employing a guidance counselor. Some are referring these problems to 
the home-room teacher. The fact is, however, that instruction with regard 
to personal problems has never been really seriously considered as a part 
of the secondary-school curriculum in spite of the crucial importance of 
giving young people an insight into the intimate and all-important lessons 
that mature people have learned by hard experience. Education has always 
dealt with the world that is far removed from personal life. There has 
been a kind of social taboo against talking about personal interests. Courses 
on health have been for the most part farces. Courses on manners have been 
thought of as trivial or impossible. ' 


Here again it must be pointed out that a new course such as that 
advocated is not an easy course to inaugurate. It will be fatal to assume 
that such a course can be conducted casually by an amateur teacher. In 
preparing new courses some kind of codperative effort and high intelli- 
gence are needed. The complex conditions of modern life call for new 
forms of instruction but it must always be kept in mind that the new 
conditions are complex. 


The General College of the University of Minnesota is offering courses 
on personal problems and is contributing through its teachings to the 
development of intelligent young Americans. When one remembers that 
only a smali fraction of the youth population goes to college one realizes 
that if instruction of the type under consideration here is really to reach 
the great numbers which it should reach it will have to be offered in 
secondary schools. 


A new course which is not common in secondary schools but which 
has had a promising tryout in a number of centers is the course in general 
language. The course in this field has sometimes been regarded as an 
exploratory course useful because it determines whether pupils have an 
interest in and a capacity for foreign-language studies. The course some- 
times consists of a little Latin, a little German, and a little French. Another 
type of general-language course aims less at introducing pupils to various 
languages. It discusses the general history of human speech with explana- 
tions of the development of dialects, the nature of inflectional languages, 
the character of sentences in different kinds of languages, and other topics 
which belong to the general field known as comparative philology. Such 
a course seems far more likely to interest the ordinary pupil and far more 
likely to give him an insight into the nature of his mother tongue than 
does foreign-language instruction as now conducted. Evidence is abundant 
that most students suffer from acute dissipation of attention when they 








48 Nationa AssociaTION oF SEcONDARY-ScHooL Principats_ [| February 


try to understand by a superficial study of Latin such diverse facts as 
the military strategy of Caesar, the civilization of Rome and of the Gallic 
tribes, the various declensions and conjugations of Latin words, and the 
structure of a straightforward Latin sentence, or, what is still worse, the 
structure of indirect discourse. A general-language course concentrates at- 
tention on essential facts and eliminates much that is not relevant to an 
understanding of the nature of language. 


The courses which have been described and advocated up to this 
point are quite adequate to occupy profitably the time of pupils through 
the junior high school and the early part of the senior high school. Not 
only so, but they can be expected to stimulate far more interest than do 
the ordinary courses now administered in the early stages of secondary 
education. It is a generally recognized fact that one of the chief successes 
of the early courses of the traditional secondary-school curriculum is the 
dispatch with which they eliminate an appreciable part of the pupil popu- 
lation. It is solemnly asserted by some of the devotees of algebra, geometry, 
English composition, and foreign languages that these subjects are the 
most efficient means of sifting out all those who according to the tradi- 
tionalists ought never to have entered the secondary school. Non-academic 
pupils are certainly “mowed down,” if one may borrow the phrase, by 
the requirements of the early courses of the conventional secondary school. 
The pupils who survive these early courses know, and their teachers know, 
that there will be less weeding out in the later years, somewhat more of 
interest in the courses, and quite certainly a reduction in the strenuousness 
of effort necessary to remain in school. The curriculum which is being 
recommended in this paper is aimed first of all at the salvaging of non- 
academic pupils. The hope is, however, earnestly cherished that as soon as 
teachers and principals begin to cultivate interest in non-academic pupils 
and discover the superiority of interesting subjects as means of arousing 
human minds to action they will extend the new curriculum to pupils who 
now get on well in traditional courses. 

It may be pointed out that the program which is advocated in this 
paper does not call for the abandonment of preprofessional courses for 
those pupils who are going on to specialized education in higher institu- 
tions. Nor does this program conflict with unit-trade training for pupils 
who are preparing for highly skilled trades. The only conflicts of interests 
which arise between the various instructional programs are those which 
result from the fact that in most secondary schools unadjusted pupils, pre- 
professional pupils and unit-trade pupils are all in attendance and are in 
an important sense competitors of the school’s funds. In times past the 
preprofessional pupils have had the most attention. Unit-trade pupils have 
been given some attention in the larger school systems. The plea that is 
here presented is for recognition of the interests of the great majority of 




















1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 49 


pupils who are never going to enter the professions or the highly skilled 
trades but who have a right to a general education. If a program of general 
education can be organized along the lines here indicated preprofessional 
courses and unit-trade courses can be added wherever the financial resources 
of school systems make such additions possible. The balance will indeed be 
shifted. It is to be noted, however, that the program of general education 
here advocated cannot only claim the right to recognition because of its 
own independent value, but it promises much because it will stimulate 
interest and cultivate habits of independent and productive study in pre- 
professional and unit-trade pupils as well as in pupils who are now un- 
adjusted. 


There are two more innovations which are to be urged as equally 
important or even more important than those which have been advocated 
in preceding paragraphs. The first is the introduction of a series of courses 
in the organization and present characteristics of social institutions. No 
movement has been more widely accepted in theory or less completely 
realized in practice than the movement for ample social instruction of 
secondary-school pupils. The problem that confronts education in this con- 
nection is one of meeting a universally felt need. 


The organization of the proper agencies to prepare instructional mate- 
rials in the social studies is the critical problem. This is, however, a problem 
which has to be solved in dealing with all the new courses that have been 
discussed in this paper. The attempt will not be made at this time to out- 
line in detail the contents of courses in the social studies. The limited 
purpose of this paper is to make a case, if it can be done, by concrete 
examples for the development of new desirable courses. There is no neces- 
sity for any lengthy argument in favor of courses in the social studies. 


The final innovation which it is the purpose of this paper to urge is 
one on which there is unlikely to be such agreement as there is with respect 
to the desirability of courses in the social studies. School officials have not 
ordinarily felt called on to give attention to the fact that pupils, especially 
non-academic pupils, are eager to acquire something that the school has 
never provided, namely, economic adjustment. Adolescents are in process 
of leaving behind dependent childhood. They are about to become adults. 
They want to be independent and self-supporting. They look to the future, 
while much of the instruction offered in the schools looks toward the past. 
Sooner or later educators will do well to realize that for adolescents life 
means transition into adulthood. They will do well to realize also that 
adulthood is a physical, intellectual, social, and economic state. The school 
has attended to certain aspects of the transition from adolescence to adult- 
hood but not to all. 


In recent times the problem of youth has been brought acutely to the 











50 Narttonat AssoctaTIon oF SEcoNDARY-ScHOooL Principats_ [February 


attention of thinking Americans because economic adjustment of young 
people has become increasingly difficult. 


The schools can explain this disregard of economic adjustment and 
can take the position that it is the responsibility of some other agency to 
attend to the adjustment of young people; or they can take a hand in a 
new and vigorous codperative program which aims to induct young people 
into a successful economic and social adulthood. Fortunately, the schools 
have in the Federal Government a strong ally if they decide to participate 
in developing a new program of economic adjustment of young people. 
The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration 
are agencies of partial economic adjustment. They do more than merely 
provide work; they pay wages; they restore morale; they demonstrate to 
young people that the public is greatly concerned in giving them a footing 
in the modern world. They satisfy the eager desire of individuals for op- 
portunity to become contributing members of productive society. 


The question before the educational systems of the country is clear 
and capable of simple statement. Will the schools recognize what the 
Federal Government has done and will they consider seriously the relation 
of work to the development of young people? Some steps, it is true, have 
been taken in educational institutions in the direction of preparing young 
people for productive work. Shop courses and courses in agriculture, sew- 
ing, and cooking have been organized. The schools have opened these 
courses with hesitation and often with reluctance. They have never really 
articulated these courses with the rest of the educational program. They 
have never taken the next step of consciously and wholeheartedly articulat- 
ing their courses with actual productive labor. The fact is that very little 
attention has been given in education to the function of work as a means 
of promoting the maturing of personalities. 


Modern psychology differs from the psychology of earlier times in the 
emphasis which is laid on behavior as a contributing condition to intelli- 
gence. Earlier psychology explained mental life as determined by sensory 
impressions. Present-day psychology emphasizes, the motor processes. Edu- 
cation has never fully worked out the implications of motor psychology. 
It seems not improbable that the requirements of modern life will force 
education to adopt a pattern in which work will take an entirely new 
and highly important place. 

The experience which has been accumulated in recent years through 
the special agencies which have been trying to fit young people into jobs 
has made it evident that the transition from adolescence into adulthood 
depends on the cultivation of work habits and personal adaptations that 
have not been cultivated in schools. It is clear from the experience of the 
Civilian Conservation Corps and of the National Youth Administration 














RG OCT SSrllfCTTeehUh 











51 





ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTyY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 





1940] 


in dealing with unemployed young people that a new type of training is 
necessary to prepare many young people for the life into which they must 
go after leaving school. A schedule of schooling in which manual labor 
rather than academic subjects has the right of way is clearly indicated as 
essential for some young people at some stage in their development. It is 
quite possible, indeed highly probable, that manual labor will be found 
to be a valuable means of contributing to the preparation of all young 
people for their mature lives. 


How is a work program to be arranged? It is not enough that the 
schools open shops and kitchens. If work is to play .a real part in the 
preparation of young people for adulthood it will have to be work under 
conditions that make it truly productive. Society will have to come to an 
understanding with private industry or else it will have to give employment 
on public enterprises to those whom private industry cannot employ. So 
far as the schools are concerned, the main point is that they must codperate 
by making their programs flexible enough to give work the right of way 
for many of their pupils. If a boy can secure an opportunity to work on a 
farm or in a factory or other industrial concern half a day each day or 
three days a week, the school program should be arranged to receive him 
at hours that make his work program possible. More important than merely 
receiving him is the duty of giving him suitable instruction when he is 
received. The courses now administered by secondary schools are in general 
only partly suited to the needs of those who labor. Some of the courses 
recommended earlier in this paper might serve very well. Other new courses 
will have to be arranged. 


There is one point which must not be overlooked, tangible economic 
reward for labor well performed is one of the most important factors in 
inducting young people into adulthood. Wages as well as opportunities to 
work are essential. One cannot make a statement of this kind without giv- 
ing full recognition to the social upheaval that it suggests. What is to be 
the scale of wages? How are the wages to be administered? How is an 
industrial system which has as its driving force the profit motive to be 
induced to participate in the induction of young people into adulthood? 
How are communities to be led to see the advantages of employing in 
public works young people not engaged in private industry? How are the 
labor unions to be brought into sympathy with a work program for young 
people? 

There are no questions with regard to the education of adolescents 
that call for more serious thought than the questions which arise when one 
tries to determine the part that work is to play in the maturing of modern 
youth. Work used to be supplied on the farm for practically all young 
people. Work was recognized as genuinely productive, as contributing to 




















[February 


52  Nartionat AssociaTION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


the economic welfare of the family and of the individual. It is not necessary 
to point out how present-day conditions have eliminated work from the 
lives of most secondary-school pupils. While the schools have enrolled the 
majority of the youth population of the United States, they have not sup- 
plied them with opportunities for productive work such as earlier genera- 
tions had. Here is a demand for social and economic readjustment which 


challenges the highest wisdom. 

The changes in the secondary-school curriculum which this paper had 
advocated cannot be developed in a day or in a year. They cannot be 
undertaken singlehandedly by one school. The only possible way for the 
secondary school to make radical changes in their programs is to codperate 
under the leadership of some such powerful organization as the National 
Association of Secondary-School Principals. This organization has been 
debating for some years past what secondary schools ought to do. Is it not 
time to recognize that the secondary-school program comes into real 
existence at the point where it deals with pupils? Secondary schools are 
to-day buried under the accumulated deposits of ages of tradition. There 
is one and only one way to reform secondary schools — that is to develop 
a new body of instructional materials and instructional practices. The way 
to develop instructional materials economically is for each of the eight 
thousand best-equipped secondary schools in the country to prepare at 
least one unit of instruction that departs from tradition and includes 
something that can contribute directly to the induction into adulthood 
of all pupils— academic and non-academic. The easiest way to try the 
experiment of making work a part of the plan of training young people 
for life is for a few of the leading secondary schools to take advantage of 
the Federal support now given to work programs or to find some way of 
developing a plan of productive work and compensating wages for pupils 
in codperation with the private industries located near them. 

If codperative activities of the type here advocated were inaugurated 
American secondary education would become in a new sense the agency 
for inducting into adulthood young people — non-academic and academic; 
vocational and preprofessional. The United States has to-day a host of 
young people who are not being inducted in an orderly way into adulthood. 
Is the responsibility for correcting this situation one that the National 
Association of Secondary-School Principals is willing to assume? 


Will French, Chairman of the Implementation, was introduced, whose ~ 


report follows: 















1940} Proceepincs oF TweENTy-FourTH ANNUAL MEETING 53 


POPULAR EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY-SCHOOL 
LEVEL 


Witt Frencu 


Chairman, Implementation Committee 


The Implementation Committee of this Association considers its func- 
tion to be that of assisting high-school principals and faculties to decide 
what practices and procedures are likely to produce the greatest improve- 
ment in their schools’ educational programs. We think an educational pro- 
gram is being improved as it becomes the kind of program expressed and 
implied by the reports of the Orientation Committee and by those express- 
ing similar views. In general then, as chairman of the Implementation 
Committee, my chief concern is that the committee helps to facilitate the 
improvement of secondary education by pointing out to schools which 
practices and procedures are more and which are least effective. 


As many of you know, the Committee upon Implementation of Sec- 
ondary Education has been centering its attack upon the critical problem 
of improving the educational opportunity of that large group of youth 
who are not planning to enter college and who do not have the ability or 
interest to enter the highly skilled vocations for which existing programs 
of vocational education largely prepare. Youth-unemployment has had the 
effect of increasing the number of such youth in school and of prolonging 
the average stay of each of them over what it was in the predepression 
period. The senior high school especially is therefore enrolling to-day an 
enlarged group for which it does not generally offer as definite a program 
of education as for the youth who are bound either for college or for the 
skilled trades and industries. The heart of the problem of better provision 
for these “educationally neglected” youth centers in the question of what 
is the best educational experience for this large group of youth for whom 
neither present college education nor present vocational entrance education 


is proving appropriate. 

In addition to this problem there is a related if not identical problem 
of more extended general and prevocational education in the senior high 
school for those pupils who intend to enter vocational education courses. 
Delayed entrance into work by youth coupled with some tendency to de- 
crease the long period of vocational education preceding entrance upon 


1 For the basis for the decision to center effort on this field see: Patrick, Robert 


B. “Most Pressing Problems of Principals,” The Bulletin of the National Association of 
Secondary School Principals, Volume 23, Number 83, May, 1939, Pp. 4. 

Spaulding, Francis T. “Educational Problems Causing Administrators Most Concern 
During the Past Two Years,” The Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary 
School Principals, Volume 23, Number 83, May, 1939. p. 29. 

For an illustration of the type of work sponsored by the Implementation Committee, 
see: Dodds, B. L. That All May Learn. The Bulletin of the National Association of 
Secondary School Principals, Volume 23, Number 85, November, 1939. 











54. Nartionat Association or Seconpary-ScHoot Principats [February 


work opens up time in the senior high school for a longer period of com- 
mon integrating education for these youth than has before been available. 
It is probable that this need for this group of youth and the need for the 
group referred to in the preceding paragraph can be met largely by a 
properly developed program of popular education at the senior high school 


level. 

I want now therefore upon my own responsibility, but with the tenta- 
tive endorsement of the Executive Committee of this Association, to lay 
before you for the consideration of this Association and its various com- 
mittees a proposed program and plan of work for the Implementation Com- 
mittee which seems to be to be required if we measure up as a committee 
to the task with which we are confronted. I propose the expansion of the 
work of the Implementation Committee to encompass a program of activity 
specifically focused upon 

(1) identifying and evaluating existing programs and practices which 

have been introduced by schools and other youth-serving agencies 
in an effort to meet this need for popular education, and 

encouraging and assisting schools to develop and evaluate new 
teaching materials, and instructional and administrative procedures 
designed to meet this need for popular education better than exist- 


ing materials and procedures do. 


For purposes of this proposed program, popular education at the sec- 
ondary school level is defined and described as that education which seeks 
to increase the competence; viz., ability and willingness, of the groups of 
youth mentioned above, 

(1) to carry socio-civic responsibilities 

Competence in this area implies the ability and willingness to sus- 
tain and improve the mutually helpful relations with one’s fellow- 
students (workers, —- citizens) which a democracy requires. 

to carry socio-economic responsibilities 

Competence in this area implies the ability and willingness to 
utilize one’s abilities in working with our natural resources and 
the material aspects of our culture to the end that the high stand- 
ards of living which democracy seeks for all may be as fully and 
generally attained as possible. 

to maintain and improve physical and mental health 

This means ability and willingness to seek good physical and 
mental health and to work individually and with others for the 
conditions, standards, and habits which promote health for all. 
to engage in recreational activities 

This means ability and willingness to select and participate in 
wholesome forms of recreation according to one’s interests and 





1940 | ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTy-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 55 


tastes and to codperate with others in efforts to provide the means 
and facilities through which all may have better recreational op- 
portunities. 

It is proposed that the following plans for embarking upon this pro 
posed program be studied, modified, and adopted as modified by the Im- 
plementation Committee of this Association. 

(1) That this committee break itself into four sub-committees, each 
of which under the general direction of the Implementation Com- 
mittee as a whole will take the responsibility for prosecuting one 
of the phases of the work implied in the above four-fold statement 
on popular education. Each of these sub-committees should as- 
sociate with itself a number of other members of the Association 
and high-school teachers who are particularly interested and com- 
petent in the work assigned to it. 

That each sub-committee proceed under the coérdinating direction 
of the Implementation Committee, of its chairman, and of such 
research advisers as may be furnished to 
(a) discover and evaluate existing programs and practices, and 
(b) encourage and assist schools to develop new ones. (See [1] 
and [2], page — above). 
That the socio-civic sub-committee (No. 1) first center its work 
around the discovery and production of effective materials to be 
used in educating for democratic citizenship and living. 
That the socio-economic sub-committee (No. 2) first center its 
work around the progress and results of the Occupational Adjust- 
ment Study now under way under the direction of the Imple- 
mentation Committee. 
That the health sub-committee (No. 3) concern itself at first with 
the discovery or production of materials for health instruction 
which are adjusted to the needs, interests, and abilities of this 
group of youth. 
That the recreational activities sub-committee (No. 4) devote it- 
self at first to the discovery, study, and evaluation of school and 
community recreational programs which have been designed with 
particular reference to the needs and interests of this group of 
youth. 

In carrying out the above plans as finally modified and approved, it is 
proposed that these sub-committees encourage broad participation in their 
work by schools and by individuals; that they use existing agencies and 
groups both within and without our Association rather than create new 
ones; that they and the Implementation Committee as a whole offer to 
codperate with other appropriate educational organizations especially in- 











56 Nartionat AssoctaTIon or SEcoNDARY-ScHOoL Principats [February 


terested in any of these problems of secondary education; that in the cases 
where other organizations have projects in these areas on foot, these sub- 
committees offer to assist and that in no case is there to be a needless 
duplication in the work of the sub-committees proposed here and that of 
other existing organizations. 

Finally, it is proposed that the Implementation Committee continue its 
efforts in conjuction with other agencies interested in secondary education 
to secure adequate funds for the vigorous conduct of this program; that 
failing in such a joint-effort it should seek support for this program on its 
own initiative and that the Association should stand ready to contribute 
substantially both from its capital funds and from its current revenue 
toward the costs of this proposed program. 

I am convinced that the time for positive and forward-looking action 
in secondary education is at hand. Some organization is going tu formulate, 
popularize, and bring into reality constructive plans for reconstructing 
secondary education along the general lines laid out by the Orientation 
Committee. The need is great. Time is precious. I have presented this plan 
here in the hope of shortening the process of coming to some agreements 
which will make broad-gauge, effective action possible. 

Mr. French then introduced speakers who were granted ten minutes 
each to report on promising efforts to educate the non-college youth. 


A REPORT ON PROMISING EFFORTS IN SECONDARY 
EDUCATION IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA 


Witrarp E. Gostin 


Superintendent of Schools, Webster Groves, Missouri 


I have been asked to make a brief report on promising efforts to change 
secondary education which are to be found in the section of the Middle 
West lying around St. Louis. I have been torn from the beginning between 
the desire to be optimistic and encouraging on the basis of the few signifi- 
cant efforts which seem to be underway and the inclination to be pessimistic 
and discouraged by the widespread absence of an experimental attitude 
on the part of the secondary school people in this section. My loyalty to 
the section supported by some study of conditions in the nation at large, 
leads me to say, however, that this portion of the Middle West doesn’t 
seem to be significantly different from other sections of the nation, in the 
matter of vitalizing the secondary school program, in terms of the needs 
of the boys and girls involved. 

In order to reinforce my own knowledge of the efforts that are being 
made in this part of the country, I wrote to a dozen or fifteen school 
men — largely secondary-school men — in this area asking them to outline 




















1940] ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 57 


for me any significant innovation which they knew of that had been in- 
troduced into a secondary school during the past three or four years and 
which was designed to make school attendance a more dynamic, living 
experience for the children in that school. 

I got some encouraging reports which I shall cite in a few moments. 
On the other hand, the returns which tended to add to my discouragement 
far outnumbered the ones carrying constructive outlines of actual projects. 
For instance, a man who knows secondary education in and around St. 
Louis perhaps as well as any other person had this to say in reply to my 
questions: “Your letter strikes in me a feeling of despair’and almost hope- 
lessness with regard to the secondary schools, for I know of no ‘significant 
innovation.’ I feel I am very well acquainted too, with the schools in this 
area, but the innovations I know of could be classed largely as administra- 
tive tinkerings which have no real effect on the quality of education. When 
you say, too, that the thing you are interested in is that which ‘tends to 
make high-school membership a living, throbbing experience for a child,’ 
I despair still more.” 

An outstanding high-school teacher in this area, so recognized by his 
own teaching associates had this to say: “I don’t believe that there is a high 
school in this area which offers experiences that are living, throbbing ex- 
periences for children — and that a complete change in our thinking must 
be made before one comes into existence. I am sorry to be so discouraging 
but a semester of thinking, questioning, and some investigation convinces 
me that it is true. Principals and teachers in this area are anxious to keep 
their feet on the ground. They have succeeded in keeping them there — all 
the way up to their ankles.” 

On the other hand, there were favorable reports. The high schools at 
Marceline and Memphis, Missouri, are two small high schools in which 
guidance has been carried on in more than a prefunctory manner. The staff 
of the Hannibal High School at Hannibal, Missouri, under the leadership 
of Principal Harvey V. Mason has attempted to influence their curriculum 
reconstruction program by what they have learned about the children of 
their community through their guidance program. This led them to de- 
velop and strengthen the program for those youngsters who are known to 
be pointed toward college. They then attempted to construct a program 
more in line with the interests and needs of a group of children who are 
known to be pointed for employment in the industries of the community 
at the earliest possible date. This left them with a group of individuals 
from which students may move in either direction, and here they have 
attempted to widen the scope of the high-school program for the children 
in this area. 

The Senior High School at Columbia, Missouri, under the leadership 
of Dr. Fred Dixon, has done a significant job over a period of the last few 








58 NationaL AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principas [February 


years in the field of training for diversified occupations. Dr. Dixon in dis- 
cussing this program and some of the other activities of his school made 


this significant statement with reference to evaluation: “Lord, don’t ask 
me how we evaluate these things. The administration, the teachers, the 
students and the community in general seem to feel that we are getting 
somewhere.” 

John Burroughs School, a private school in near-by St. Louis Coutny, 
under the directorship of Dr. Leonard D. Haertter, is one of the thirty 
schools in the eight-year experiment being conducted under the sponsorship 
of the Progressive Education Association and others. They have adopted 
an experimental attitude toward their entire program. Their reports are 
extensive and interesting. I can only mention them here and add that it 
seems that this whole experiment is one that should command the atten- 
tion of all of us interested in secondary education. 

I had two most significant letters from the Springfield, Missouri Public 
Schools. Principal J. D. Hull, of the Senior High School at Springfield said 
in his letter: “I believe our most important innovation during the past 
three years has been in developing methods and materials to help in the 
first out-of-school adjustments of our high-school Seniors who are not 
going on to higher institutions.” He then went ahead to describe a very 
extensive program which they have carried on with the aid of three full- 
time coérdinators, the members of his regular staff, and other agencies in 
the community. A very careful industrial survey of Springfield has been 
made which shows the number of persons employed and the type of labor 
needed in each significant industry in the city. They have gone a step 
farther and learned about the job opportunities that are available in the 
community during a typical year. They have codperated with the staff and 
students of the Teachers College located in their community, in making 
surveys of the graduates of their own school, in order to learn precisely 
what their problems have been in the years immediately following gradu- 
ation. I could go on with a description of this project. 

There are relatively few junior high schools in this section. From my 
observation and inquiry there seems a very great likelihood that you will 
find an element of experimentation wherever you find a junior high school 
in this part of the country. Jarrett Junior High School of Springfield, Mis- 
. souri, under the leadership of Mr. C. F. McCormick, Principal, typifies 
the possibilities for experimentation in this area. Mr. McCormick tells his 
story so very well indeed that I wish to quote extensively from his letter. 

‘I am not sure that we have anything which will be of material help to 
you but I am enclosing a description of an integrating curriculum which 
we have introduced into our seventh grade and which we propose to carry 
over into the eighth and ninth grades soon. I am enclosing a statement 
about the curriculum which shows the philosophy on which it is based, 





1940] ProcrEeDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 59 


a statement of the organization itself, and the outcome which we hope for, 
and finally a chart which shows the direction which a study in one class 
has taken. 

1. The plan was introduced here because we believe that the old strict 
departmentalization of subjects in the junior high school was not consistent 
with what we have learned about the nature of behavior and learning and 
child development. It is a distinct attempt to break down the barriers 
between different subjects. Ours might be called a core curriculum based 
around socialized living. Of course, the areas treated in this curriculum 
are social science and the language arts. The subject material which is 
introduced is definitely more functional in nature than it formerly was 
because it is related to real problems within the experience of these students. 

2. We thought that it would make it possible for the teachers to un- 
derstand better children because they would be working with them over 
longer periods of time and would have at the most seventy students each 
day instead of the normal load of one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
under the old plan. Secondly, we further thought that we would allow 
time for the planning and carrying out of projects in which a group would 
be interested. We thought it would make possible a more real type of 
evaluation because of an extended amount of time. 

3. As you will find elsewhere in the material I am sending you, 
our seventh graders spend one-half day with one teacher, who is respon- 
sible for their growth in ability to live together more wholesomely. The 
other half of their day is devoted to study of science, art and music, and 
mathematics. There is a close codperation between the art department and 
these integrating classes and much of the art work done has a direct re- 
lationship to what was under consideration in these classes. 

4. After four years of this experiment we are ready to defend it and 
say that it works. We believe quite definitely that it accomplished what 
we thought it would. I have considerable testimony from teachers as to 
what they believe about what is accomplishes. That they know better the 
students as individuals and their capacities, interests, and needs is beyond 
a doubt. We are almost ready to say that they are learning more subject 
matter than they did under the former arrangement. We are conducting 
some tests at the present time to determine this item more definitely. We 
believe that it has made learning take place in more meaningful situations 
because of the opportunity afforded by longer periods for field trips, the 


use of visual aids, etc. 


Evaluation, of course, in this type of program is far more difficult 
than it is where the primary aim is to see how many facts the students can 
learn. The outcomes here hoped for are changes in attitudes, growth in 
appreciation and personality, and the ability to think critically. We do 











60 Nationa. Association oF Seconpary-ScHoot Principats [February 


know that we have a well adjusted group of youngsters in this grade. 
The pressure of competitive marks has been removed so that there are 
fewer attempts at detours around the school program. We believe we have 
evidence also that there has been a wholesome growth on the part of these 
students in their socialization, that is their ability to think in terms of the 
common good of the group as well as a development of sympathetic and 
tolerant attitudes towards each other. Our chief method of evaluation as 
you can gather from the above has been the careful observation of intelli- 
gent teachers. They have been writing instances of growth in and toward 
the aims which we have set. A good deal of evidence is on file in the form 
of anecdotes about individual students which illustrate the direction in 
which they are developing. Of course, we have done testing under this 
program more than we have ever done under the old one. Testing of two 
kinds — standardized testing and informal teacher-made tests. We strive 
very hard to have each child set for himself goals which he holds to be 
d.sirable in his pattern of effective living and evaluation then for him 
partly consists in considering how much he has achieved in relationship 
to his goals.” 

The most one can do in ten minutes is to catalog the names of the 
few places that are trying. I have done that and in addition have tried to 
give some deeper insight into the efforts being made in one school system — 


that of Springfield, Missouri. 


PROMISING EFFORTS 
E. D. GrizzELy 


University of Pennsylvania 


The current efforts with respect to the development of curriculums for 
educationally unadjusted youth in Pennsylvania are due in a large measure 
to the State Association of Secondary-School Principals, the Pennsylvania 
branch of this organization. Time will not permit even a general review of 
the events leading up to the present state-wide program of committee 
activity. However, it is necessary to indicate that approximately one hun- 
dred regional committees in a state-wide organization are carrying on 
voluntary activities in the nine coérdinator districts into which the state 
has been divided. At the meeting of the state association last October it was 
recommended that an effort be made to codrdinate these district com- 
mittes around three main centers — Eastern, Central and Western with 
the view of securing advisory service from the higher institutions in each 
of these areas. 

The current procedures in one of the centers, that serving the Eastern 
area will be described. At the request of the Philadelphia Suburban High- 


Aerraewans 
(ities 


Sen, 


soo pacacipieasy 





1940} ProcEepDincs OF TWENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 61 


School Principals Association, made more than a year ago, the University 
of Pennsylvania established an Educational Service Bureau to provide ad- 
visory service and to aid educational workers in any manner possible in 
the solution of their problems. Although the Bureau is not limited in the 
scope of its service to any one group, it has devoted the main part of its 
energies to coordinating the committee activities of the Philadelphia Subur- 
ban High-School Principals Association. Nine committees have been at 
work, each meeting two afternoons a month at the Service Bureau. The 
Bureau attempts to supply new materials, stenographic and duplicating 
service, as well as to arrange for expert advisory service from the University 
staff and from the staffs of other local institutions. 


It is too early to report concrete results but the plans as projected by 
the planning committee of the Principals Association anticipate some 
tangible results by the end of the current school year. Such results as 
appear to have merit will be published for distribution through the state. 
Moreover, it is understood that members of the committees now engaged 
in the work will provide a considerable group for the Pennsylvania Work- 
shop to be held for six weeks at the Pennsylvania State College and jointly 
sponsored by Pennsylvania State College, the University of Pittsburgh, 
the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Department of 
Public Instruction. 

The general approach in the development of curriculums for educa- 
tionally unadjusted youth may be indicated as follows: 

Members of any particular committee study the characteristics and 
needs of the individual pupils involved. 

In terms of the needs revealed objectives are stated. 

With these objectives in mind experiences calculated to attain the 
objectives are organized in some pattern convenient for use in 
directing the learning activities agreed upon. 

The curriculums are then put into operation and adapted as the 
experience of teachers and learner may suggest. 

The curriculums in operation will be evaluated and those showing 
distinct merit will be recommended for publication and distribution 
to other centers of curriculum development throughout the State. 


I. 


It is hoped that this voluntary service carried on throughout the state 
will be of assistance to the State Department of Public Instruction in one 
of two ways. Either the committees that show marked success may be 
made official committees working for the Department or the work of these 
committees will provide a large number of qualified curriculum organizers 
from which the Department may draw its curriculum Committee mem- 
bers if and when such committees are appointed. 











[February 


62  Nationat AssoctaTIon oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


CURRICULUM ADJUSTMENTS IN PACIFIC COAST HIGH 
SCHOOLS TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE NON-COLLEGE 
STUDENT 


Harotp C, Hanp 
Stanford University 

During the past five or six years there has been a tremendous wave of 
curriculum development in the Far West, much of it centered in the 
needs of the non-college student —- and virtually all of it concerned with 
what perhaps might be called the non-college-centered needs of all students. 
There have in fact been so many such developmnts in this region, and 
especially in California, that one is at a loss as to how to proceed when 
asked to speak intelligibly about them in the short space of ten minutes. 

Perhaps the most helpful thing one could do would be to give some 
idea of the nature of the wave of curriculum development work which is 
undeniably sweeping over this vast region, and then attempt to give illus- 
trations selected from various high schools in the area. This we shall at- 
tempt to do. 

Since the broad outlines of the curriculum pattern which seems to be 
emerging in the secondary schools of the Far West has in large part been 
suggested, either directly or indirectly, by the new emphasis introduced 
into the programs of what have come to be known as the “cooperating 
secondary schools” in the state of California, we shall in large part center 
our attention upon these ten institutions. The schools in question are the 
Burbank Senior High School, the Carpinteria Union High School (a small 
high school), the David Starr Jordan High School in Long Beach, the 
Eagle Rock, Garfield, and Manual Arts High Schools in Los Angeles, 
University High School in Oakland, the Pasadena Junior College and 
Senior High School (one institution embracing grades 11, 12, 13, 14), 
Sequoia Union High School in Redwood City, and the Yuba City Union 
High School (a second small, rural high school ). 

Under the stimulation of Dr. Walter R. Hepner, then Chief of the 
Division of Secondary Education, California State Department of Educa- 
tion, an agreement was worked out among the Association of California 
Secondary-School Principals, the California State Department of Education, 
and virtually all of the colleges and universities in California whereby 
college entrance requirements were to be liberalized for the graduates of 
this carefully selected group of outstanding but still reasonably representa- 
tive secondary schools. The completed plans were approved in 1935, and the 
term of the “experiment,” obviously inspired by and modeled after the 
so-called “30 schools study” of the P.E.A., was set for five years. In- 
cidentally, this experiment has turned out to be no experiment at all in 
the sense in which it was intended —this by virtue of the fact that al- 
though the higher institutions did liberalize their entrance requirements, 








ne 
ot 
pri 
stu 


reg 
to 

















1940 | ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 63 





they did not to any appreciable degree modify their previously held re- 
quirements for upper division standing; in other words, the “getting out” 
requirements were little, if at all, changed — and the high-school principals, 
of course, acted accordingly in deciding what advice should be given to 
college-bound students. In another sense, however, the “experiment” has 
proved to be very stimulating and helpful — the work -which has been 
going on in the ten codperating schools has undeniably focused the atten- 
tion of the educators and parents of the state, and of the other west coast 
states as well, upon the non-college-centered needs of all youth. 


Let us now comment briefly on what has been taking place in this 
regard. Although no two principals or faculties can agree on any exact 
definition of the term, core courses of one type or another have been put 
into operation in all of the ten schools. In practically all instances, attempts 
are made to center these core experiences (regardless of what they may be 
called) around (1) the interests, needs and purposes of youth, and (2) the 
more important of the recurrent socio-economic-political problems of our 
day. Subject matter boundaries have in many instances been considerably 
or completely obliterated. In most schools guidance and instruction have 
been recognized as inseparable aspects of the teaching process and the 
teacher-counselor in charge of a core group, frequently for at least two 
years, has assumed the guidance as well as the teaching function with 
reference to the youth in his charge. 


As one considers the problems variously dealt with in the non-college- 
needs-centered core offerings in these ten schools, and in a great many 
others in this region as well, he cannot escape the conclusion that the 
principals and teachers in this area are sincerely desirous of “helping 
students to do better the desirable things they are going to do anyhow,” 
regardless of whether or not they may be college-bound. I shall attempt 
to characterize these problems under eight rather broad categories. 


1. Personal problems involved in orienting one’s self to the new 
school: Getting acquainted with the school administration, teachers and 
student leaders; becoming familiar with the physical plant; learning the 
objectives and purposes of the school; learning the customs, practices and 
rules of the school; getting acquainted with school organizations and pub- 
lications; learning how to behave in a variety of school situations; learning 
how to use the library and the other school services; acquiring new reading 
and study habits; getting acquainted with other students and being happily 
inducted into the life of the school. 


2. Personal problems of a variety of types centered around what 
might be called personality development: Making practical applications of 
psychology to self-improvement; overhauling one’s attitudes towards one’s 








64 Nartionat Association oF SeconpaRY-ScHoot Principats [February 


self and others; developing qualities that make one liked and eliminating 
or compensating for those that make one disliked; making one’s self 
attractive through improving one’s dress, speech, complexion, posture and 
health; acquiring social skills — singing, playing a musical instrument, 
dancing, conversational abilities, and proficiency in various sports and 
games — which make one a desired member of the group; developing 
interests of a variety of types; making and keeping friends of both sexes, 
and being a friend; dating and maintaining wholesome boy and girl re- 
lationships; becoming proficient in socially approved usages in a variety 
of life situations; managing personal finances; learning about the effects of 
alcohol, tobacco and narcotics on health and personality; building one’s 


personal philosophy. 


3. Personal problems centered in home living: Getting along more 
happily with one’s parents, brothers, sisters and other relatives in a variety 
of situations; being a good neighbor; making home repairs; use and care 
of home appliances; decorating the home; preventing accidents in the 
home; looking forward to establishing a home; choosing a mate; prepara- 
tion for marriage; learning the etiquette of the wedding: studying marriage 
and marriage relationships; studying sex education and eugenics; buying 


or renting a house; budgeting the family income and wise buying; install- 
ment buying; learning about home management and child care; learning 
the causes and the consequences of divorces and broken homes. 


4. Personal problems involved in choosing and preparing for an ap- 
propriate occupation: Securing a better knowledge of the world of occupa- 
tions through studying occupational trends, the nature of an occupation, 
conditions of work, regularity of employment, supply and demand, wages 
or salary, attitudes demanded, quantity and quality of education required, 
etc.; learning to appraise one’s self more accurately with reference to 
vocational interests and aptitudes; making a reasoned choice of an occupa- 
tion or of an area or type of vocational activity; selecting courses and student 
activities in harmony with one’s vocational goal; learning how to locate 
vacancies and how to make an effective application; learning how to hold 
a job and how to win advancement. 


5. Personal problems centered in developing leisure time interests 
and skills; Building continuing interests in reading, in sports and games, 
in music and art, in dramatics, in handicrafts and in a variety of hobbies.. 
To illustrate: Oakland’s University High School offers non-college-prepara- 
tory group reading classes based on biography, travel, new books and cur- 
rent magazines. This course may be repeated as often as the student de- 
sires. There are no specified readings, no examinations, and no required 
book reports. This school also gives coeducational instruction in social 
dancing, bridge, badminton, tennis, table tennis and other games. It also 


PSC ncaa Sansa cee snags 














1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 65 


conducts excursions to art galleries, theaters and other recreational centers 
in the community. 

6. Social problems of a variety of types: Understanding the role of 
science in changing our world and the way in which we live; discovering 
the maladjustments in our society and studying their causes and con- 
sequences; conserving human life in the community through preventing 
accidents in the home, in the school, on the playground, on the highway 
and elsewhere; improving traffic regulations and control; utilizing and 
improving our community’s public health, child welfare, recreational, 
educational and employment services; conserving and wisely utilizing our 
natural resources; improving the use of the cultural resources in our com- 
munity; raising living standards; providing decent housing for all; pro- 
viding social security; studying the causes and consequences of unemploy- 
ment; learning to evaluate community and regional planning; learning 
about the programs and methods of pressure groups; learning how public 
opinion is molded; learning to recognize propaganda and to evaluate adver- 
tising; learning what our political parties are and how they operate; learn- 
ing about the problems of capital and labor; studying the probable causes 
and the social consequences of depressions; evaluating group buying 
through taxation; preventing crime and delinquency; studying international 
relations and our problems of national defense; safeguarding civil liberties 
and protecting racial and minority groups; learning the principles of 
American democracy and what these mean when translated into daily 
life activities. 


7. Personal problems centered in educational planning: Securing a 
better understanding of one’s self, a knowledge of one’s interests, abilities, 
strengths and weaknesses; learning to formulate more adequate and valid 
vocational and other personal purposes or goods; learning about the various 
courses and student activities in the school — their purposes or objectives, 
their nature, for whom they are designed, how they relate to one’s plans 
or goals, etc.; choosing courses and student activities appropriate to one’s 
purposes or goals — building an educational plan. 


8. In addition to the representative types of non-college-centered 
problems suggested above, the high schools of the Far West seem to be 
giving increased attention to the so-called “fundamental skills.” There is 
a growing emphasis upon the basic skills of written and oral English, 
spelling, penmanship and mathematics. For the most part, these are being 
taught in a functional manner. In situations in which it is needed, remedial 
work is being required in these skills. The high-school people of this area 
typically no longer mistakenly assume that progressive education and care- 
ful attention to functional skill building are antithetical. 








66 Nartionat AssociaTIon oF SeconDARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


VITALIZING THE SCHOOL PROGRAM FOR ALL YOUTH 
PROMISING EFFORTS IN THIS AREA 


Joun Ruri 
Professor of Education, University of Missouri 


What are the more promising efforts toward vitalization of the school 
program in this area? Obviously, this question cannot be answered fairly 
or accurately. In Missouri alone are more than a thousand secondary 
schools. Which of these most clearly deserve citation for their efforts to 
meet the needs of modern youth? Frankly, I do not know with certainty; 
indeed, no one can be sure! The number of institutions involved and the 
difficulties encountered in appraising an institutional program combine 
to make a brief report of this character unscientific and unsatisfactory. 
Certain limitations are inherent in the assignment. Of course, you recognize 
them as clearly as I. Under the circumstances the best I could do was to 
draw upon my own observations, consult professional acquaintances 
throughout the state and subjectively evaluate such data as are available 
or could be obtained. In this connection the staffs of the State Department 
and of the State Teachers Association have been most helpful. I have 
solicited their observation and opinions and I gratefully acknowledge their 
assistance. 

Without attempting any defense of my evaluation let me then cite 
a number of schools which, in my judgment, are worthy of special mention 
in this connection. Certain of the departures I shall mention represent dis- 
tinct innovations. Others represent improved utilization of accepted ideas 
or techniques. In either case, the school is here cited because the departure, 
of whatever type it may be, is believed to represent a definite improvement 
in the school’s program. 

A number of high schools are carrying out programs of course inte- 
gration which appear to be promising. Northeast High School in Kansas 
City, enrolling about 1900 students is carrying on an interesting and ef- 
fective experiment in integrating English with fine arts and social studies. 
This is being done on the twelfth grade level. The instructor has built 
the program of literature around social themes and related information 
in music, art, history, sociology, and economics. The activities in writing 
and speaking have been developed from the materials studied. Such evidence 
as I can obtain indicates that pupils and instructor are enthusiastic in their 
praise of the program. Judged in terms of standardized tests results the 
work on grammar and literature has not suffered, but in many cases ap- 
pears to have improved. 

The Principia, a non-public high school of St. Louis, enrolling 237 
pupils is for the third year carrying on an integrated program of ninth and 
tenth grade English and social studies. The work is built around units 























ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTy-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 67 





1940] 


in social studies but related literature, art, and music are brought in 
wherever there appears to be an opportunity for natural integration. Two 
instructors work with each section for three hours each day. They have 
jointly prepared a basic outline of the courses, but much of the classroom 
discussion and study grow out of the interests of the pupils. Of the two 
instructors, one is trained in social studies and the other in English. The 
work in English is built primarily on the social studies activities. The 
working schedule is quite flexible although at the end of the year about 
one half of the time allotted to both has been devoted to social studies and 
one half of the time has been devoted to English and fine arts. 

The Mexico High School is doing unusual work in the area of 
diversified occupational training. This course is open to all eleventh and 
twelfth grade pupils. It attempts to give these pupils an organized oppor- 
tunity to gain experience in actual occupational situations while attending 
high school. An instructor of recognized competence assists pupils to 
secure positions with local firms where they are supervised by regular 
employees or the proprietor himself, and by the school codrdinator who 
is a regular member of the staff. An effort is made to give the pupil train- 
ing in subjects closely related to his out-of-school work. One unit of credit 
per year is granted for outside work done under proper supervision, and 
one unit is granted for course work done under the coérdinator at the 
school. The pupils receive a nominal wage on the job. In this six-year 
high school of about 675 pupils, 50 pupils are enrolled in this course at 
the present time. It appears to be meeting a definite need in the community 
by preparing boys and girls to enter occupations directly upon finishing 
high school. The Hickman High School of Columbia, the Hannibal High 
School, and a number of other schools appear to be making a worth-while 
contribution in this area. In my judgment, the trade and industrial train- 
ing department in the St. Charles High School is unusual. Over thirty 
boys are enrolled in the general trade courses offered and they appear to 
be receiving unusually practical training in trades such as carpentry, 
metal work, plumbing, etc. Many of the boys who are taking this program 
of work enter the car shops and building trades immediately upon leaving 
school. 

A number of relatively new courses are putting in appearance. South- 
west High School in St. Louis has reorganized its entire science program in 
an effort to better meet the needs and interests of their pupils. Although 
the traditional courses in the natural sciences are still offered for those 
who are especially interested in specialized science, for pupils who have 
primarily a consumer’s interest courses in general science, general biology, 
and generalized physical science have been organized. The course in gen- 
eral biology emphasizes the flora and fauna of Missouri, and is primarily 
a nature study course, although much demonstration and some individual 








68 NarionaL AssoctATION oF SBCONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


laboratory work is done. The course in generalized physical science em- 
phasizes practical everyday science. Its materials are based upon the 
scientific needs and interests of individuals in the home and as members 
of the typical community. In this course teacher demonstrations are em- 
phasized although some individual laboratory work is done. The Carthage 
High School is vitalizing its art program by making consumer art para- 
mount. The work in the art department is being codrdinated and integrated 
with other high school subjects, and home and community environmental 
conditions are especially emphasized. Conditions in the homes of the 
community are utilized extensively here. The Maplewood-Richmond 
Heights High School is experimenting with work in the field of con- 
servation. 

A growing number of institutions are systematically increasing the 
degree of student participation in school control. The theory of pupil 
participation has long been accepted. More and more schools are intelli- 
gently putting it into practice. St. Joseph Central enrolling twelve hundred 
pupils has an outstanding program of student participation which centers 
around a student council under the supervision of a highly competent 
faculty adviser and a principal of recognized ability. This student council 
has participated effectively and constructively in more than a dozen 
significant school enterprises. The Lamar High School enrolling about 
four hundred pupils has likewise done a splendid job of departing from 
the regimented, semi-dictatorial type of administration and has set up 
form of democratic participation that exists not merely on paper but ap- 
pears to be functioning throughout the entire school system. Herculaneum, 
a high school of about three hundred, also has an exceptionally well or- 
ganized program of pupil participation in which the pupils share very 
actively in the management of the library, the use of various school 
facilities, and a wide range of other school and pupil responsibilities. In 
these schools and many others accepted theory is being translated into prac- 
tices that are genuinely refreshing. 


It has long been argued that student activities if properly directed 
can contribute directly to vitalizing an entire school program. In my 
judgment, this has been done to a remarkable degree in the Kirksville 
Junior High School. Through their assemblies, their music programs, their 
student council, their clubs, their hobby shows, and their guidance program, 
the so-called student activities of the school are exerting an enlivening 
influence upon the entire program. Hickman High School of Columbia 
should certainly be mentioned in this connection, 


A large number of high schools have recognized the inadequacy of 
the old type report card which restricted itself to a report on academic 
achievement. Vigorous efforts are now being made to humanize and per- 























1940 | PRocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 69 


sonalize reports to parents. Boonville, Clayton, Jasper, Marceline, and 
Columbia all deserve special mention for their efforts in this direction. 
Admittedly they have not completely solved the problem, but they are 
trying new procedures, many of which are promising. 

A determined drive has been made and is being made to bring about 
a program of guidance that will function. Boonville appears to have a 
program that is unusually serviceable. Marceline, somewhat smaller in 
size, likewise has a functioning program. The forty-pupil high school 
at Sumner, Missouri, is doing a very much better job in the field of voca- 
tional guidance than is done by most institutions which work under more 
favorable conditions. 

A number of schools have undertaken community surveys in an effort 
to arrive at a clearer comprehension of local needs and problems. A fine 
illustration of this is the Springfield Senior High School which for several 
years has engaged in a continuing program of curriculum revision. As one 
of its techniques it has recently made a s‘gnificant industrial survey of the 
area which the school is attempting to serve. This survey, of course, in- 
cludes a study of local opportunities, jobs, and a follow-up study of high- 
school graduates. The Smithville High School of 178 pupils has for 
more than fifteen years carried on a continuous study of its high school 
graduates, systemat cally taking into account the vocations into which 
they enter and their status in these vocations. Th’s admirable study and 
the procedures it involves might well be emulated by every high school 
in the State. 

Realizing that their schools imperatively need intelligent, sympathetic 
support, more and more executives and staffs are developing programs of 
interpretation designed to keep the public informed regarding the school, 
its program, and its problems. Of the many institutions which might be 
cited, the Chillicothe High School deserves special credit for handling this 
problem with unusual effectiveness. The Marceline High School also de- 
serves a place in this category and a number of others might be men- 
tioned if time permitted. 

In my judgment, the Wydown school of the Clayton School District 
deserves mention for its efforts to make its school building a homelike, 
pleasant place. The arrangement and decoration of this building are un- 
usually attractive. Visitors report that it comes nearer giving them a 
“home” feeling than any other school building they have seen. It has 
none of the factory appearance so common to many of our school plants. 
On the contrary, its general design, its furnishing, and its appointments 
all contribute to a rather unusual school atmosphere. 

The foregoing instances are but a few of those that might well be 
mentioned. I sincerely regret that lack of time makes it impossible for 














[ February 








70 NarTIoNaL AssociIATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


me to mention a considerable number of other schools which in my judg- 
ment clearly deserve honorable mention in their efforts to vitalize their 
programs. However, the list here presented includes a considerable num- 
ber of institutions and, limited though it is, offers convincing evidence 
that alert administrators and teachers are making a vigorous, intelligent 


attack on the problem, and are achieving results. 










PROMISING EFFORTS FOR VITALIZING THE SECONDARY- 
SCHOOL PROGRAM IN DES MOINES 


J. E. SToNEcIPHER 
Director of Senior High Schools 














Des Moines has been working earnestly at the task of bringing the 
practices of its ten junior and senior high schools into vital relationship 
with the lives of pupils. It is undeniable that significant and far-reaching 
changes have been taking place. But we feel that we have only begun to 
swing our practices into line with the needs of our constitutents. A number 
of promising departures have been initiated. Their cumulative effect is 
more important than any one attempt, with the dominant emphasis upon 
the effort to link the content and activity more closely with everyday living, 
and to drop out of the curriculum such deadwood as our traditions and 
discernment will permit. Several possible avenues have been explored of 
which the following are the more promising. 

The core curriculum is one of the most far-reaching innovations 
tried out in the secondary schools of Des Moines in the last decade. 
It is now in its seventh year of use in one high school. In this 
course, which is a part of the Eight Year Study sponsored by the 
Progressive Education Association, half the pupil’s time for three 
years in senior high school is given to the task of building a broad, 
general foundation for life competence. Providing a common back- 
ground for full, rich living in a democratic society is considered 
of paramount importance. The other half of the pupil’s time is 
devoted to specialized elective courses chosen by the individual in 
the light of his own interests and vocational plans. 

Core curriculum courses are no longer novel, for they have been 
described repeatedly in educational literature. Outwardly the Des 
Moines experimentation does not differ greatly from many others. 
The core course has accepted responsibility for most of the Eng- 
lish and social-studies content for the pupils, has brought much 
more attention to appreciative art and the sciences, and has added 
a very different approach to life realism in the American Problems 
and the Practical Problems of Living courses in grade twelve. 















I. 






























1940] 


ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 71 


The most significant bearing upon the subject of this panel lies 
in the results. It has changed the teachers who worked with it. 
The thinking, planning, and study demanded by this effort, the 
contacts with other schools, and the opportunities for the aid of 
curriculum assistants have led to other core courses, to new broad 
fields courses, to changed emphases under old titles, to new applied 
courses, and to voluntary study projects among teachers which 
may make over the school program in Des Moines. It would be an 
error to ascribe all this to the core curriculum course. It is probably 
more accurate to say that these developments grew out of the 
same kind of thinking that initiated and carried on the core course 
and that the work with the core courses gave impetus and ex- 


pression to a developing philosophy. 

Some of the elements of this thinking are pertinent here. 

a. One of the chief functions of the school is that of providing 
educational situations in which the pupils may develop char- 
acter and personality traits necessary for democratic living. The 
teachers have tried to define these traits; to set up situations 
designed to give experience in this respect, and have evaluated 
their achievements in terms of growth in democratic participa- 
tion. 

b. A greater concern on the part of the pupil for his own educa- 
tion has been fostered in several ways. Competitive grades have 
been avoided by introducing more self-evaluation, by developing 
reports which analyze the pupil’s progress toward a number of 
goals, and by providing for more experience in codperative 
pupil and teacher planning of classroom procedures. 

c. Greater vitality of subject matter has been sought. The most 

important factor in this respect has been the omission of tradi- 
tional content. (It took several years for teachers to believe 
that they really could prune out the content which they must 
discard to find room for more vital material. There are now 
many who are ready to find a place for material which is 
realistic and vital, even though it means casting out some of 
the once cherished content.) 
A more continuous experience was deemed necessary. The core 
curriculum plans emphasized the desirability of reducing the 
amount of short-time, cafeteria-like accumulation of credits in 
high school. Administrative measures to insure opportunities 
for continuous contact with a teacher and a group for two to 
four semesters have increased in every school. 

e. The guidance function of classroom education has been em- 
phasized. There is a marked difference in attitude if a teacher 











72 Nationa Association oF SEconDARY-ScHOoL Principats [February 


expects to carry a pupil through three or four semesters of 
time. It is worth while to learn to know him as an individual 
if he is to work with a teacher for a year or more. There is 
time to initiate a program of systematic improvement and carry 
it out with a greater degree of satisfaction than is possible in 


a single semester. 


2. What are some of the evidences that this kind of thinking and 
experimentation has brought results in terms of more vital sec- 
ondary education? Again it is necessary to disclaim that the core 
curriculum is directly responsible for all these changes. But it is 
responsible for some of them and has furthered the discussion and 
the thinking which directly produced others. 


a. 


e 


hl 
s* 


Experimentation with a broader base of unified or integrated 
education involving much freedom of choice of content, pupil- 
teacher planning, teacher-teacher planning, and more continu- 
ous relationship as a group is under way in every school in 
Des Moines. 


. Teachers are taking an aggressively active part in studying the 


community as a background for their teaching, in making 
greater use of the educative resources of community life, and in 
actively planning the improvement of their own competence. 
There are under way definite projects which illustrate each of 


the assertions. 


>. Broad fields courses in practical science on the senior level have 


been initiated with promise of success in all senior high schools. 


. Teachers of traditional courses such as English are broadening 


their concepts of their function to include a wider range of use- 
ful experience and have accepted the responsibility of orienta- 
tion and pupil adjustment to a new school as a part of their 


duty. 


. Teachers of different subject fields such as salesmanship and 


home management, or art and merchandising, are planning 
courses codperatively and are bringing their classes together for 
significant discussions and reports. The relatedness of large 
areas of study in terms of competence for living well is be- 
coming more apparent to pupils and teachers. 

A broadly flexible course in American Problems is required 
of all pupils in all schools. Many of the finest examples 
of teacher growth and of application of school experience to 
life situations have occurred as outgrowths of this course, which 
stems directly from the experiences of the core curriculum. 
An occupational survey and a youth survey of Des Moines has 





























































73 





ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 


been launched and will be completed this spring. It has been 
planned with the codperation of interested community groups 
and will be carried through under the direction of the State 
Department of Vocational Education. The results are expected 
to provide a basis of accurate information to guide teachers, 
administrators, and the community in the redirection and im- 
provement of educational plans. 

3. A beginning has been made in codperative vocational education. 
At present, most of this is in the retail selling field and in office 
practice, but we are accumulating experience in a field which 
must surely become more important in the future. 

4. The most significant departure in the direction of more vital edu- 
cation in Des Moines is, without doubt, the more active praticipa- 
tion of classroom teachers in all phases of school development. 
Teachers are accepting much more responsibility for original and 
creative thinking about what is to be taught and what methods 
of teaching are most profitable to use. They are codperating in 
committees and in voluntary groups in carrying out plans. It is 
in this general acceptance of the fact that the improvement of the 
curriculum and the educative process in general is the concern of 
the classroom teacher that we find the greatest hope for the future. 
A Planning Committee, representative of all grade levels of the 
schools, is becoming the most important group in the school sys- 
tem. This committee is directing the activities which are a part 
of the American Council Teacher Training Study. It is participat- 
ing in the planning for a six weeks workshop or Problems Labora- 
tory for Des Moines teachers next summer with the collaboration of 
Drake University, the American Council, and the Progressive 
Education Association. If the results of this effort at self-improve- 
ment will produce in one hundred or more teachers the greater 
sense of direction and competence for planning together that has 
been noted in those who have attended former workshops, this 
may well prove one of our most important steps toward better 


education. 


The most important factors in vitalizing a school program are the 
teachers who direct it. The most excellently planned curriculum will fail 
if it has originated outside the thinking of the teaching group and is not 
understood or accepted by them. Core curricula, methods of reporting, in- 
novations in personal development or consumer courses, guidance plans, 
and other attempts will produce little actual change if teachers do not 
understand the purposes and philosophy underlying them. What a teacher 
is fundamentally trying to accomplish with a given group makes so much 
difference in what goes on that all other factors take second place in in- 














74 Nationat AssociaTIon oF SeconpARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


fluencing the educational process. The selection of one or two teachers to 
write a new course of study for the others is a totally inadequate gesture 
toward teacher codperation. It involves not only the invitation to participate, 
but the development of organization and procedures by which teachers 
may bring their thinking and experiences together in a working relation- 
ship. 

Our Des Moines teachers, given encouragement, freedom, and stimu- 
lation, have accomplished a great deal toward more vital education in the 
past few years. If we knew how to advise them more wisely and give them 
more help, they would go faster and farther. We believe they, and we, are 
on the way to marked improvement in education for all the youth of 
Des Moines. The way to such improvement begins with the purposes of 
teachers and ends with the participation of the pupils in planning their 
own educational experience in the classroom. Perhaps we should say that 
it ends in the effective participation of the pupil in social, civic, and 
economic social action, but we haven’t found how to extend our evaluation 


and direction that far as yet. 


PROMISING EFFORTS FOR THE EDUCATIONALLY 
NEGLECTED 


J. E. Wortuincton 
Principal Waukesha (Wisconsin) High School 


Time or space does not permit a detailed statement of the various pro- 
grams that are being tried in the Wisconsin area in attacking the problem 
of how may the educationally neglected learn. In order that I might get 
the opinion of the schoolmen of the State, I wrote to twenty-five junior 
and senior high-school principals asking this question, “What are some 
promising efforts in your school along the lines of adjusting the school cur- 
riculum to the needs of the so-called non-college pupil?” The answers 
would indicate that most principals are aware of the problem and are doing 
something about it. Harry E. Merritt, State Supervisor of Secondary 
Schools, writes “Practically every high school in the State that has any sort 
of enterprising leadership is doing something along the line of adjusting 
the school curriculum to the needs of the so-called non-college pupil.” 

Yet I think no one is satisfied that the solution of the problem has 
been reached or that much of any outstanding contribution has as yet been 
made. The Wisconsin principals are aware of the problem, are studying 
it, and are experimenting with proposed solutions. 

In the first place there is a changed philosophy. No longer is it re- 
garded that college preparation is the major function of the high school or 
that all students “are adjusted to and capable of success in a verbalized and 





















1940 | PRocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 75 










































academic curriculum.” Neither is it felt that the college and university 
influence is so dominant that it is necessary to give to all such a curriculum 
that the few may enter the higher halls of learning. In other words 
there is a feeling of sufficient freedom to raise and to attempt to solve the 
problem of the “educationally neglected,” to modify school practices even 
to the extent of meeting the needs of the individual. Principal O. H. 
Lowe of Sheboygan states this attempt “to bend the services of the schools 
to the non-academic child” thus:— “Accepting an educational philosophy 
which holds that a child’s success in school is not absolute, but relative, and 
should be measured in terms not of what he has done compared with 
others of a similar age or grade, but rather what he is doing in relation 
to what he has done previously. In other words, an educational philosophy 
is based upon growth rather than achievement, making possible experiences 
of success on the part of even the slowest learner, thus contributing to 
happiness in school experiences.” 

A changed philosophy is the first step in the solution of the problem 
of the educationally neglected. 

A second attack upon the problem is a wide comprehensive program 
of studies which makes possible selection of fields of study in line with 
the interests and capacities of the student. Most large high schools and 
many of the smaller ones now have such programs and to outline such in 
this paper is not necessary. 

Many schools are working along the line of the modified or parallel 
courses in the old established fields as English and science. There are many 
such courses throughout the State. Two from Waukesha will illustrate this 





technique:— 
ENGLISH XII (NON-COLLEGE) 
Reported by Miss Frances Magdanz, Head of English Dept. 

English for non-college pupils in the twelfth year aims to find people 
who have not found themselves through the usual activities in English. By 
capitalizing on individual interests and personal needs, this course hopes 
to make reading an enjoyable and meaningful experience and to increase 
the effectiveness of oral and written expression. 

Certain of the frequently mentioned objectives of education in a de- 
mocracy are evident in the outline of goals toward which we are working. 

I. Self-realization 

A. Effective speaking, reading and writing of mother tongue 

B. Meaningful leisure time activities 

C. Responsible steering of life 

II. Human relationships 

A. Importance of relationships with people 

B. Amenities of social behavior 
C. Appreciation of the family 











76 Nationa Association oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


III. Civic responsibilities 

A. Awareness of disparities of human circumstances 

B. Tolerance toward honest differences of opinion 

C. Understanding of social structures and processes 
IV. Economic efficiency 

A. Understanding of requirements for various jobs 

B. Selection of and preparation for a vocation 

C. Appreciation of social value of work 

Perhaps the procedure is not vastly different from that of any other 
English class* We use discussion and pupil suggestion as a basis for 
building the subject matter of the course, although we have a rather 
definite body of material which we have found from past experience is 
pertinent as well as interesting. 

For instance, under self-realization we are sure to discuss motion pic- 
tures and their place in our lives. With some groups, we work out 
standards for judging movies. We concern ourselves with magazines and 
their contribution to a well-adjusted life. Books as a pastime, as a source 
of information, as a mental or spiritual stimulation are approached from 
the personal slant of “What do you like?” Sports and other leisure 
time activities furnish popular raw material for much oral and written dis- 
cussion. When well directed, all of these experiences through which a per- 
son may exercise the power of choice form a basis for the control of the 
forces which pattern our lives. 

For this goal, Readers’ Digest is our common material for study. 
This part of our work is most effective when it is most individualized. 
Class discussions, teacher-pupil conferences, and written progress reports are 
valuable aids in checking what is happening in any group. Because a lim- 
ited association with words is frequently responsible for a meager under- 
standing and appreciation of reading material of all kinds, we use Word 
Wealth by Miller as a stimulation and source for vocabulary building. 

A collection of modern short stories edited by Wunsch & Albers and 
called Thicker Than Water is the point of departure for the human rela- 
tionship theme. Wide reading and very thoughtful comments grow out 
of the problems in human living presented in this book. 

Civic responsibility and economic efficiency are subjects of discussion 
which grow quite naturally out of the consideration of home and family 
problems presented earlier. Magazine and book material on vocations, 
interviews with outstanding men in business, and talks on various careers 
help seniors to get a clearer picture of what they want to do as well as 


what wants to be done in this world. 


GENERAL PHYSICS 
Reported by Dr. Ralph Thomas & Chas. Horwitz, Science Deparement. 
The course is designed as a functional, non-mathematical approach 























1940} ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 77 





to physics for the non-college students. It is not intended as a course for 
those of poor achievement. It cannot truly be called a “Survey” course, 
because many topics are covered in much more detail than in the traditional 
course. It may be considered a “Detailed course in practical physics but a 
survey course in theoretical physics.” 

The course is conducted with almost no individual laboratory work, 
although some pupils do conduct many informal experiments. There are a 
large number of group and teacher demonstrations. A study guide (not a 
work-book ) has been found to increase the efficiency of learning. Except 
for the large use of demonstrations, the techniques used compare with 
those recommended by the “Morrison” procedure. Reading of scientific 
literature, magazines, etc., is given much stress. This type of reading 
material is abundant in after-graduation days. It is probably the most 
immediate application of the “scientific” vocabulary learned in the course. 

At no time is the exact statement of a law, principle, theory or formula 
stressed. The understanding of these and their application in practice is 
stressed. Thus an individual may not be able to state Boyle’s law, but he 
could give you the principle of operation of the pneumatic tank; he may 
not be able to define specific gravity, center of gravity or state the laws of 
flotation, but he could explain the precautions to take in the use of a canoe 
or boat, and why to take the precautions. 


The course content is divided up into major units and “study topics” 
as follows: 
I. Physics in the Home 
A. Water systems 
B. Heating and Air-conditioning 
C. Lighting 
D. Refrigeration 
E. Misc. household equipment (Review topic & preview) 
II. Physics in Industry 
A. Machines, work and power 
B. “White coal” 
C. Steam power 
D. The gasoline engine 
E. The Diesel engine 
III. Physics in Communication 
A. Bell & Telegraph 
B. Telephone 
C. Radio & Television 
IV. Physics in leisure time activities (choice given) 
A. Photography (advanced & beginners) 
B. Advanced Radio 








78 Nartionat AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-ScHOoL Principats [February 


C. 
D. 
E. 
F. 


Muroscope & Telescope 
Color 
Musical instruments 
Engineering physics (Resolution & composition of forces) 
G. Theoretical Physics (Reading) 
(1) Historical 
(2) Modern 
The testing program used in this course makes a distinct effort to avoid 
measuring accumulation of facts. Cause and effect relationships are tested 
for much as is possible with the “teacher-constructed” tests available. 





Even in the non-academic fields there is a growing movement to mod- 
ify the courses because of a feeling that in them as; e.g., in machine shop 
there is an opportunity and a challenge for the boy of high 1.Q. H. H. 
Helble of Appleton outlines such a modification. 

“At the present time we are revising our Home Arts courses so, as to 
take care more adequately of those who intend to go to college and major 
in some field of Home Arts. We feel their Home Arts training in the 
high school should be different from that of the high school Home Arts 
majors who do not plan to go to college.” 

A few schools see the solution of the question in the organization of 
general courses in the core-curriculum subjects. There is much truth in the 
thought that courses arranged around the life experiences, needs and inter- 
ests, of high-school boys and girls in general would be of equal value to the 
boy or girl who plans to go to college, and to the one who stays at home. 
Perhaps what is outlined in Chapter IV of the Bulletin “That All May 
Learn” for the educationally neglected would if given to them make the 
college preparatory type the educationally neglected, if they did not also 
get it. The Shorewood High School is interested in this approach to the 
problem. Principal Grant Rahn writes, “Personally, I do not like the 
discrimination between the college and non-college pupil implied in the 
topic assigned to you. The distinction is, in my opinion, merely temporiz- 
ing. It does not go to the root of helping all pupils meet more adequately 
the everyday demands upon them according to their abilities, needs and in- 


terests. If we can get college entrance requirements modified, I see no 


reason why, in the various broad fields, both he who is going on to college 
and he who is not, cannot be accommodated. 

“Our efforts are to become a school, centered not in subject matter, but 
in the development of the total child—emotional, social, physical, as well as 
intellectual. The English, speech, social studies, science, music, physical 
education, home economics, and manual arts sections all contain departures 
from traditional offerings many of which departures are commonly accepted 























ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 79 





1940) 


and others not so commonly accepted. In the mathematics section the 
article on the new two-year mathematics course is an effort to help the 
pupil meet more adequately the quantitative problems of everyday life.” 


Some principals described new courses that their schools have organized. 
These generally are for the purpose of enriching the school experiences of 
the educationally neglected. Principal O. L. Robinson of Janesville outlines 
one such course which he calls “Everyday Living.” 


“For the past several years we have been offering a course we call 
“Everyday Living.” I don’t know why the name—it seems to fit about as 
well as any. Originally it was opened to eleventh graders but after 
three years we limited it only to Seniors. They are more mature, see 
graduation in the distance, and are doing more thinking possibly about the 
future. We have four classes at present, two at two different hours, taught 
by a man and a woman. This gives us an opportunity to throw two groups 
together whenever we wish and on occasion have the man take the boys 
and the lady take the girls. We include a vast number of things that we 
hope will be useful in the future. Starting off with a study of themselves 
personally, we include a study of occupations. This helps mature them. 
During the year we include everything involved in owning and renting 
a home, buying a lot, building, all kinds of insurance, buying, budgeting 
the income, savings, etc. As time goes on youth problems are discussed, 
to the point of the wise choice of a life mate, etc. We like the course very 
much. It is a bit hard in the beginning for the students because there is 
no one text for source material and they must do some thinking for them- 


selves.” 


I do not think that this paper would be quite complete if I did not 
mention a distinctive experiment that is to be carried on in a few small rural 
high schools in Wisconsin. 


A committee made up of representatives of the State department of 
Public Instruction, the state university, the state teachers colleges and the 
county superintendents has made a study of small high schools in Wis- 
consin. Prof. C, E. Ragsdale of the University was chairman. This com- 
mittee found that:— 


1. The typical curriculum pattern is four units of English, four or 
five of social science, three or four of natural science, and two of 
mathematics. Seventy schools offer nothing outside of the tradi- 
tional academic subjects. A few units chosen from business training 
courses, instrumental and vocal music, industrial arts, home eco- 
nomics and agriculture complete the pattern. 


2. Ina few, but in only a few cases is the internal content of courses 
adapted to a rural community. 











[ February 


80 NarTIoNAL AssociIATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


The committee recommends among other things that:— 
Every part of the curriculum should be planned and organized to 


fit a community or pupil need rather than to present a section of 
some subject-matter field, whether traditional or new in school cur- 
ricula. Need should be broadly interpreted; it includes cultural 


and recreational as well as vocational matters. 
The curriculum must be planned for needed physical and social as 


2. 
well as intellectual growth. 

3. The curriculum must be closely related to the out-of-school life of 
the pupils while they are of school age. 

4. The curriculum must appeal to high-school boys and girls of the 
kinds found in small high schools. 

5. The curriculum must contribute to the pupil’s ability to participate 


intelligently in the life of a village and rural community. To per- 
form this function the curriculum must be environmental-centered. 
At the present time the committee is planning to organize and super- 
vise a curriculum for each of a half dozen small high schools. These to 
serve as guides to other schools interested in curriculum revision. 
This movement should do much to assist the small high school to per- 
fect an organization that will aid the intellectually neglected and make it 


possible “that all may learn.” 





In a five-minute review Prof. B. L. Dodds of Purdue University 
summed up the discussion. 

Business Meeting was presided over by the President, K. J. Clark, 
who presented the Chairman of the Planning Committee, who asked “leave 


to print” his report. 


REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE 
Francis L. Bacon 


Chairman 
A rather full report of the activities of the Planning Committee cover- 
ing the work from the origin of the Committee in February, 1936, up to the 
time of the national convention in 1939, appeared in the Proceedings of the 
Twenty-third Annual Meeting of this Association as published in the March 


Bulletin, Number 81, of 1939. 

The development of the Discussion-Group Project, under the aegis of 
the Committee, has continued with marked success. Not only has it created 
constructive program material for many groups of high-school principals 
but in some cases the materials and the methods have been used to vitalize 


entire state programs. 








1940| ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 81 


It has added significantly to the services of the Association as a whole, 
even to the surprising extent of influencing state membership. Also, this 
program, designed to offer a means for high-school principals to attack their 
common problems on a national front has, for the first time, as a part of 
tne work of our national association, brought principals together in specially 
planned regional meetings. The results would appear to be highly prom- 
ising, and this Committee hopes that larger attention will be given by the 
Association to the possibilities for regional meetings. 


A newer activity originally initiated by the Planning Committee but 
now of outstanding operation under its own power is the highly significant 
program of the Committee on Implementation. The work and accomplish- 
ment of this committee has developed with a rapidity quite beyond our 
anticipation. May we call your attention again to the report of last year 
and to the current report and, perhaps, especially to that recent publication, 
“That All May Learn.” Other interesting evidences of the work of this 
committee built upon the field problems as submitted by our membership 


will be soon forthcoming. 

The Committee believes that it should continue to point out the large 
increase which has taken place in the past few years in the services which 
the National Association has given to its members. These extended services 
have added greatly to the operational costs of the Association. The regular 
membership dues pay but a small part of the total cost of the services given. 
Fortunately the large expense of the Discussion-Group Project and of the 
Implementation Committee has been met by special grants, for which all 


of us are deeply grateful. 


The fact remains, however, that our Association is giving its members 


a much larger service for the dues paid than may be customarily found 
among national organizations. Your Committee has recommended that a 
classification plan of varying amounts for dues be worked out, giving mem- 
bers a more equitable opportunity to pay a larger proportion of the cost of 
the services received. 


In the currently proposed constitutional changes a slight beginning is 
being made in this respect. It is hoped that principals will be especially 
interested in the new type of institutional membership. As this gives spe- 
cific opportunity for the school to carry the membership with guaranteed 
personal representation to the principal, with opportunity for the library to 
share in duplicate copies of all publications, and with significant chance to 
extend administrative participation to a teacher-delegate, it is urged that it 
be utilized as a regular item allotted to the school budget. 


The Committee believes that the proposal to link the principals in the 
field through their state organizations with the necessary machinery of elect- 














8? NaTIonaL AssoctaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


ing the national administrative officers should prove especially helpful. 
This plan should aid in bringing men into national service who have 
already demonstrated their worth in regional and state activities and who 
have had an experience with the design of the national organization sufh- 
cient to insure a quality of leadership which is desirable. To obtain this 
latter type of service is the sole purpose of the Committee in offering the 


proposals. 


Your Committee is also interested in the broadening of the borders of 
national programs sufficiently to bring enrichment to all divisions or phases 
of secondary education, hence the proposals for larger recognition of the 
divisions of the junior high school and the junior college within the 
structure of the constitution. 


Your chance to participate, your opportunity to bring a better service 
to the youth you represent would appear to depend very largely upon what 
is done nationally, and your own interest will be best served to the degree 
that your National Association plays an active and a significant part in both 
the pianning and the operation of any program which is formulated. To 
this end your Committee will give every reasonable consideration and effort. 





Mr. Bacon presented the proposed amendments to the constitution, 
which were presented in the December, 1939, Bulletin. On motion the 
amendments were adopted. 

Mr. Jacobson presented a resolution, which on motion was adopted. 


Resolution Presented by Paul B. Jacobson 


Statements recently made by two of the most influential leaders in 
American life call attention to a national problem for which it is of the first 
importance that a solution be found. . 

In his message to Congress on the “State of the Union” delivered on 
January 3, 1940, the President of the United States said: 


“The unemployment problem to-day has become very 
definitely a problem of youth as well as of age. As each 
year has gone by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls 
have come of working age. They now form an army of 
unused youth. They must be an especial concern of 
democratic government. 


“We must continue, above all things, to look for a 
solution of their special problem. For they, looking ahead 
(to live) are entitled to action on our part and not merely 
to admonitions of optimism or lectures on economic laws.” 





1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 83 


On November 2, 1939, in an address delivered in New York City, 
ex-President Hoover said: 


“At no point is free government more on trial to-day 
than in the opportunity and faith in the future that it 
offers to youth. And it is the frustrated and disappointed 
youth who cannot get a chance who has the greatest right 
to complain of our civilization. Until that is solved we 
have not demonstrated that our system is the best in the 
world. . . . There are estimated to be 140,000 youth in 
this city (New York) alone, between the ages of sixteen 
and twenty-five, who have never had a job —and they 
have trod these streets unceasingly looking and searching 
for it.” ; 


Because of the difficulties which young people experience in finding 
employment there has been an unprecedented increase in the enrollments 
of secondary schools. School systems are making strenuous efforts to meet 
the demands which are imposed upon them by these unprecedented increases 
in enrollments. This Association calls the attention of the people of the 
United States to the disastrous consequences which will follow if any re- 
ductions are made in the resources available for the education of young 


people. Indeed, there is urgent need for the expansion of the educational 
program now that pupils with a great diversity of interests are continuing 
their schooling at the upper levels. 


The sections of the country where there is the greatest need of resources 
in order to provide for young people are, in general, the sections where 
public funds are meager. It is imperative if there is to be equality of oppor- 
tunity for all American youths that adequate financial support of schools be 
assured on a national rather than a local or even a regional basis. 


It is important that close codrdination be developed among the various 
efforts which are being made by public and private agencies for the im- 
provement of the conditions under which young people make the transition 
from dependent adolescence to independent adulthood. The Executive 
Committee of this Association is authorized and directed to create a special 
committee to be known as the Committee on Codperation Among Youth 
Agencies, a sub-committee of the Implementation Committee, which shall 
take steps to contribute in every way possible to the development of close 
codrdination between education and the efforts of all agencies dealing with 


young people. 


The Association is convinced that one necessary element in the solu- 
tion of the youth problem is the employment of out-of-school youths who 

















84 Nationa AssociATION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


cannot find jobs in private industry on such public projects as forestation, 
soil conservation, assistance in public libraries, and other public works. 
The Association is also convinced that training in habits of work and in 
proper attitudes toward employment of all kinds is an essential phase of 
the preparation for life of every young person. It therefore directs the Sub- 
Committee on Codperation Among Youth Agencies to make the relation 


of work to education a major subject of consideration. 


Finally, the Sub-Committee on Codperation Among Youth Agencies 
is directed to adopt measures which will explain to the public the conditions 
which have led to the present situation with regard to young people, and 
also to organize and explain to the public such plans as it can discover or 
devise for a more satisfactory solution than is now at hand of the problems 


which are encountered by present-day young people. 





Mr. John H. Tyson presented the report of the nominating committee: 
President: Oscar Granger, Principal Haverford Township High School, 
Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. 
First Vice President: John E. Wellwood, Principal, Central High School, 
Flint, Michigan. 


Second Vice President: Virgil M. Hardin, Principal, Pipkin and Reed 
Junior High Schools, Sprngfield, Missouri. 


Executive Secretary: H. V. Church, 5835 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago. 
Executive CoMMITTEE 


K. J. Clark, Principal, Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama. 


Truman G. Reed, Principal, Lewis and Clark High School, Spokane, 
Washington. 


Hugh H. Stewart, Principal, Davis High School, Mt. Vernon, New York. 


E. R. Jobe, State Supervisor of High Schools, Jackson, Mississippi. 










































1940] ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEBTING 


TUESDAY AFTERNOON 


February 27th, 1940 


The Round Table Conference led by Mr. Aubrey Williams, Chief, 
National Youth Administration, Washington, D. C., was called to order 
by Dr. Judd at 4:15 P. M. in Committee Room 3A, Municipal Auditorium, 
St. Louis. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I am hoping that this can be a very simple 
and real conference, and I want to assure all of you right off, if you have 
any fears that I am going to make a speech that they are groundless, because 
I am not going to do it unless you force me to. I suppose certain respecta- 
bility is required, and if I cannot get into an argument with you, then I 
will have to make a speech in order to fill out the time, so we can all say 
we have been to another meeting. (Laughter) 


What I am anxious to do, and I am sure you are, too, is to get the reac- 
tions of you people to the actual operations of the student work program 
at the high-school or secondary school level. I am sure that things have 
occurred and are now occurring that you would like to talk about, that 
you would like to have the opportunity to question and express an opinion 
about, and I hope that we can be very informal and more or less as an 
administrative staff meeting, talk about the job that we have on our hands 
to do. 


I don’t know any better way to begin this than to discuss first of all, 
take that part of it that has to do with the paper work that you are required 
to perform, and then lead on up to the more difficult and the harder part 
of the job, which has to do with the philosophy of it and reason for its 
existence. 


I am anxious to get direct from you what we have done, anything that 
we have done in our requirements from you that you feel are burdensome 
and unnecessary and add to the difficulties of you doing this job, because I 
realize, I think, as much as one could in my relationship to it, that for many 
of you this is an added piece of work and it must be carried on along with 
your regular work. If there is anything in the picture that we are asking 
you to do, that you feel is an unnecessary item, why I would like very 
much to know it and like to talk about it. Maybe it is a necessity and maybe 
we have to do it, but maybe we don’t have to do it. 





So, can we go at it from that angle: First, as to what, if anything, that 
you are asked to do on your end of getting up the time sheets and reporting 


















86 Nationa AssoctaTIoN oF SeconDARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


of work and getting it in so they will get the checks, do you feel could be 
omitted and still the thing be taken care of, or what changes would you 
make in the way it is being handled, now? 


QUESTION: I was going to ask you why couldn’t we have on the time 
sheet the possibility of recording the total number of certified hours work 
for the month rather than to put down under each day the hour, two hours, 
three hours, and so on, for the month? Why can’t we have properly certi- 
fied time, could it be recorded eighteen hours, twenty hours, thirty hours, 


one entry rather than fifteen or twenty? 


MR. WILLIAMS: You don’t see any reason why you couldn’t put on 
one line that the youth worked so many hours? 


QUESTION: Eighteen hours instead of eighteen-times-one hour. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Would you also put down the hour that he worked, 


the day and the place? 


QUESTION: We would have a record of that in the office, but we 


would not have to send that in to you. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Of course, this gets down to a small item, but it is 
part of the treasury law, and I want to say that I found, when I got down 
to Washington, that there are two kinds of laws: There is the law passed 
by Congress, that constitutes one set of laws; there are the other laws passed 
and set up by the United States Treasury. I don’t mean “maybe” either. 
(Laughter) They are both bodies of law. 

Now, they insist that in order to pay for somethng, there must be the 
place that the work is performed, the hour, actual hour or day that it is 
performed, and what was done. That is a part of the requirement in 


order to get the comptroller to approve it. 
QUESTION: You were asking for questions and I was giving one. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You would like to lump it together and say the 
youth worked thirty hours. 


QUESTION: Well, they are very meticulous in checking that. One 
time I made a mistake and had the student work on Sunday, and I didn’t 
get anything for it until I corrected it. So it is very good. (Laughter) 


QUESTION: I know one case where, in a junior college, a man told 
me he had one boy, very ambitious, who, the first two months, put in all 
his hours and he did not have to do anything after that. I think they should 
be most meticulous in putting this down hour and day, to verify it. 























1940 | ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 87 





MR. WILLIAMS: Does anybody want to discuss that any further? 
Well, what other points in this whole business of bookkeeping do you find 
very difficult? Well, evidently this is a very contented group. 


QUESTION: Wouldn’t it be much easier for us if those checks were 
sent back to the schools, as they were in the beginning, instead of putting 
on the payroll the address of the children? It complicates the thing, it holds 
the payroll up quite a while. In your experience, have you found it unsatis-. 
factory to have the checks sent directly to the principal and distributed 
through the building, or can we get back to that system? 


MR. WILLIAMS: Anybody else want to discuss that point? 


QUESTION: I found in Iowa quite a little of this objection: One per- 
son contended or told me he liked the old plan better for this reason, that 
we can call the pupils in and get them to budget their resources, where, 
if it went to the parents, it was all spent before we knew what it had been 
used for. He said this occurred in his school, and I have heard reports from 
other schools in the same way, that the check comes to the pupil at the home 
address when the pupil is at school, the parents get it and ask the students 
to sign the check when they come home, and there is quite a little objec- 
tion to the present plan, I find, in high schools. 


QUESTION: We have had that same trouble where we have advanced 
books and other supplies to the youngster and the check goes to the home 
and the youngster’s parents spend the money and, in a few cases, we fur- 
nished the material for which we supposed this money was to pay and never 
saw anything of it, in the way of books, school materials, things of that sort. 


QUESTION: I think you can arrange through your State Director to 
have certain checks sent to the principal. I have six in my desk drawer at 
the present time. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Why do you have them in your desk drawer? 
(Laughter) 


QUESTION: That is a long story. (Laughter) I am from Jacksonville, 
Illinois, and in our system we require receipts, a little bit more yet, so we 
like to know that the youngster is spending this check so that he may 
remain in school and not going to the “movies” and not going to spend 
that money for home necessities and things of that sort, I mean necessities 
of the family. Maybe we are wrong, I don’t know, but we have done it 
now for three years and we think it works mighty nicely. We require 
receipts from the youngsters for their checks, and we arrange credit and, 
by the way, we have students in our high school to whom merchants will 














[ February 


88 NaTIonaL AssoctATION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


grant credit and they won't grant it to their parents. (Laughter) Figure 
that now. (Laughter) We bind those receipts and keep them for three 


years. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Let us discuss that a little bit further. 


QUESTION: We have had that same experience of checks disappearing 
from the mail box, checks signed by the parents without the child’s knowl- 


edge of it. 


QUESTION: We have had no difficulty at our school either in granting 
supplies or any other way. It seems to be working perfectly all right. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think I ought to say, in fairness before we go any 
further, that while I was, in the original instance, responsible for making 
the decision, that shortly after that the United States Treasury ruled again 
that this check belonged to the child and that the law requires that the 
check be delivered to the child at the home address. So, at the present 
moment, there isn’t any choice in the matter. I ought to say that, but I am 
interested in your reaction, I just want to put that in. 


We have had a good many objections to this, so that what you all are 
saying here has been reflected in other parts of the country. I don’t say that 
it could not be changed, I don’t know, I would not want to be too sure 
it couldn’t. Sometimes you can get those things changed, or you can 
modify them so that the actual letter of the law gets satisfied by some 
other means than just going and putting it in the mail box. How do you 
get around the ruling to distribute these checks? 


QUESTION: It took me about four months of correspondence in the 
first place to get them to continue sending checks to the principal, and we 
explained the reason for it was in cases where we had arranged credit. 


MR. WILLIAMS: To whom did you write? 
QUESTION: To the State Director of Illinois. (Laughter) 


MR. WILLIAMS: Well, he has to be a kind of district attorney, so if 
he got put in the “hoose gow”, he would have to prosecute himself. He 


was rather safe. (Laughter) 


QUESTION: We stated our reasons as to why we wished to deliver 
those checks to the youngsters, personally. It was only in the case of those 
individuals who had received checks previously and had not applied those 


checks to their bills, as they should have. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think you have to be pretty careful about that kind 














1940] PRrocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 89 


of thing from the standpoint of a long term policy. You get into the rela- 
tionship of breaking into the family setup there, and begin to exercise pre- 
rogatives in relationship to the children that tend to break down parental 
and child relationships, you are on mighty dangerous grounds, and I am 
not at all sure that you don’t have to try to do the thing you are talking 
about in another way than to, so to speak, take the child out from the 
family in these matters of finances and so on, because you and I know that 
the family struggles as a unit and they are going to sink or swim as a unit. 
If I were that child, I would certainly want to be the one to say whether 
or not I objected to my father and mother taking that check, and I do not 
think I would want anybody else to say whether my father or my mother 
had the right to take that check or not. I think I would resent that very 
much. 


I got one reply back which rather convinced me that maybe after all 
this thing was right that we have done, and that was from a certain dean 
of a state university, in which he replied and said: “I see no good reason 
why you are taking these checks and sending them to the home, because 
no youth has ever been unable to get his check if he could show a good 
reason why he should have it.” (Laughter) 


Well now, I don’t think we are in that relationship with these youngsters 
at all. If we are, then the work is on a mighty sorry basis. They earn this 
money or else our whole basis is false and dishonest, and they are just as 
much entitled to that money as you or J are entitled to our money, and 
under the same conditions, and the matter of what they do with it later on, 
it seems to me is an entirely different thing. You may want to advise the 
child and talk with the parents, but more than that, I think you are on 
mighty thin ice, because you are taking over the prerogatives of individuals 
and families, which distinctly belong to the individual and to the family. 


QUESTION: You can teach him wise spending. If you don’t teach 
him how to spend it wisely in high school, he is never going to learn. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think you can teach him wise spending, but not 
by coercion, which this amounts to when it is his money. 


QUESTION: From another angle, I wonder what the psychological 
value is of having the child receiving the check at school, for whom it is 
presumed he has done the work, at which place he has done the work, and 
receiving it from the school without any restrictions, let him have it. I 
wonder if the school being paymaster has a value or not. 





MR. WILLIAMS: I think that might, if everything else was equal, 
that might be the best arrangement. 

















[ February 


90 NationaL AssociATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


QUESTION: You haven’t it on budgeting, you just give it out. 
MR. WILLIAMS: Well I think, all things being equal, that would 


have real value, and probably more value than receiving it in an envelope 
and so on, although the main thing is that the child gets the check in a 
free, easy manner, so that he knows there are no strings tied to it, and it is 
his because he worked for it and earned it. 

I must relate to you also, because you are just as much concerned in the 
success of this thing, far more than we are, I should think, that we have 
had ninety-five per cent of our trouble come from mishandling of funds 
at this end of the thing on the part of the school people, and while I am 
glad to say that has been an infinitesimal amount compared to the hundreds 
and millions of operations that had to be performed, it has been the one 
place where more trouble has occurred than any other one point, and this 
new arrangement has minimized it and has curtailed it almost miraculously. 
Some of the cases that I have had to rule on have been heartbreaking, 
because to many of these men, and especially in the smaller college groups, 
this thing has almost been life and death in the way of income to the col- 
lege. And certain very small high schools, districts, where the group was 
very small, they have again great difficulty with the money situation. 


I am just discussing it, because there isn’t anything on earth I can do 
about it. It is the treasury ruling and it is the ruling they make with refer- 
ence to every sort of a financial transaction, no matter what it is or where 
it is, if they owe any man money, they mail the money to his address, no 
matter if he is buying pig iron or paying out funds to a child working in 


the school, it is all the same. 


QUESTION: Because funds are foolishly squandered, there is nothing 
to keep the child from being dropped from the payroll. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You are exactly right. I am glad you brought that 
out. Did you all hear that? (Cries of, “No.”) He said that if the child or 
the parent do foolishly squander the money, there is no reason why you, 
as the principal, cannot drop the child from the work program. As a mat- 
ter of fact, that is the way a great many of the principals have handled it; 
that is the way we handle it on the out-of-school work program where the 
funds are being misused. I am glad you brought that up, I should have 


thought of it. 
QUESTION: Is there any tendency to standardize the rate of pay? 


MISS : I wouldn’t say any standardization of rates of pay, I 
think the trend is to raise it from the small ten, eleven, twelve cents an 
hour, which existed in many parts of the country, to a minimum of eighteen 


. 

















1940] ProceepINcs oF TwENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 91 


and twenty cents in the high schools. There has been a general toning up, 
but it does vary from twenty cents to thirty-five cents in the high school, 
with no particular relationship in types of work from one community to 
the other. 


QUESTION: Who determines the amount of pay? I thought it was 
uniform. 


MR. WILLIAMS: That $6.00 is uniform, per month, but the hour 


rate is left to you, to the individual schools to determine. 


QUESTION: I know one small high school had two students at work, 
getting $7.00 — $3.50 each. They wrote in to the State Director, asking 
for more, they wanted to give each student $6.00 and it was granted, $12.00 
per month. They did not give those pupils any more work, but they gave 
them fifty cents an hour, boosted it up to fifty cents an hour. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I would say that was pretty bad practice, if you 
want my opinion about it, because I think you are misleading the child and 
he would have little hope of going into private industry and securing that 
same amount of pay for that amount of work. I have never felt we wanted 
to put any limits on you, believing that you will use good judgment in 
the matter, and if we put a lot of limits, I could not help but make some 
good serious mistakes about it. 


QUESTION: Is there a possibility of having different rates per hour 
in the same school, depending on the kind of work and the efficiency of 
the student? 


MR. WILLIAMS: Each of you determine the rate you pay per hour. 
If you want to pay a child eighteen cents for making an apparatus, you 
think that is sufficiently technical and requires more maturity, and you 
want to pay fifteen cents for something else, that is your business. As far 
as I know, we have nothing in the way of any hampering there. That is 
up to each of you as to what you pay. We feel, depending on local condi- 
tions and what you have to do out there, those must be the governing 


factors. 
QUESTION: What is the average pay? 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think the average pay is twenty-five-point-some- 
thing all over the country, and for college work I think it is twenty-nine 
cents. My own opinion is that in certain sections of the country it is some- 
what too high; other sections of the country it is somewhat too low. You 
will probably know which sections I am talking about. That is equalizing 
itself out each year, so that this year I think it is in a more satisfactory 
condition than it has been before. 

















92. Nationat AssoctaTION oF SEconDARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


QUESTION: You have the sixteen year age limit. I am principal of a 
junior high school, and in order to carry out that age limit, we have to 
put on the payroll pupils who give the least promise of maturing into 
society. The pupils we feel ought to have the work, some of them who have 
had to drop school, while they are not sixteen, we cannot give them that 
work. I wonder if we can’t have some arrangement where children approach- 
ing sixteen can get the benefits of this program. I had two, within the 
last month, who had to drop out, they were fifteen and a half. 


MR. WILLIAMS: What do you all think of that? 


QUESTION: You have difficulty keeping them in school, young fellows 
in senior high school, thirteen and fourteen years of age, and so many of 
those can’t do any work at all. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Would you have them work for the amount they 


receive? 


QUESTION: I think they are just as capable of doing the work as the 
other students, sixteen and seventeen. 


MR. WILLIAMS: What does that do to your whole Child Labor pic- 
ture when the government starts putting children to work, below sixteen, 
and we are trying to get Congress to enact a Child Labor Amendment, 
which says nobody shall work under seventeen or eighteen? Where does 
that lead? 


QUESTION: Is that amendment wise? (Laughter) 
MR. WILLIAMS: You do want to get into an argument. 


QUESTION: I am not asking personally. 


MR. WILLIAMS: My own personal feeling is that it is very wise, but 
that will lead into a long argument. Let me ask you this: Is it a fair propo- 
sition to ask the states and the localities to take care of that group within 
the school picture, and agree that if the federal government goes on and 
goes over sixteen, that it has done its fair share by the problem? Is that a 
fair answer to that question or not? 


QUESTION: It may be fair, but you can’t get it done. (Laughter) 
MR. WILLIAMS: It may be fair, but getting it done is something else. 


QUESTION: Mr. Williams, there is another point to that: A fourteen 
year old boy or girl is not old enough to get the work training out of it 
that the older one is, and he is not capable of doing the work as well. It 
seems to me one point in this is that the child, the boy or girl, is getting 
training in school and to work under supervision, and a fourteen year old 
boy can’t do that as well as a sixteen year old boy. 

















1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 93 


MR. WILLIAMS: Do you all understand what he is saying? A four- 
teen year old boy isn’t old enough to benefit from the standpoint of getting 
good work habits and performing the work. How many think that is 
true? (One hand raised) How many think it is not true? (Majority raised 
hands) 


QUESTION: A fourteen year old boy who is ready for the ninth grade 
and is prepared to do a good type of academic work is more capable of 
following directions and doing a better job of work than a lot of the 
sixteen year olds that really haven’t reached that stage. I have a junior 
high school also, like the gentleman back there, and we find we need it 
more for those under sixteen. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Under sixteen? 
QUESTION: Yes, sir. 


MR. WILLIAMS: How many of you feel this under sixteen matter 
is a very serious one, and that a great need exists there and something 
should be done about it? (About fifteen hands raised) How many of you 
think it is a matter which the locality itself should really take care of? (An 
equal number raised hands) 


QUESTION: Use the word “can.” 


MR. WILLIAMS: How many think the locality should and can do 
something about it? (About eight hands raised) That is very interesting. 


QUESTION: Some localities can, but others cannot. 


QUESTION: Don’t you think that child below sixteen years of age, 
don’t you think that is breaking into his regular schedule of school work 
too early? 


MR. WILLIAMS: The question is whether or not you are breaking 
into the child’s schedule of school work too early when he is under sixteen. 


QUESTION: He is a bright fellow, so many of them are extremely 
bright, and we have others at eighteen, nineteen, and twenty that are start- 
ing, but they have been failing down the line. This little fellow can profit 
by it and do the work. 


QUESTION: There are exceptions, as the case he is speaking of, but I 
think this young fellow does not have time for work. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Let me ask you all this: How many of you know 
of some considerable number of young people—and I mean that in ratio 
to the total picture—who are denied opportunity to go to high school be- 
cause of financial inability to stay in school? How many of you know defi- 
nitely of young people in that category? (About ten hands raised.) 

















94. Nationat Association oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


QUESTION: Mr. Williams, I heard it said in a recent meeting here that 
work is having a new and more important place in education. I am won- 
dering if, in that light, that is a little different from the child labor point 
of view; in secondary education, work as such brought into the secondary 
education program, and if that isn’t a little different point of view from the 


child labor. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You can’t get me in an argument against discipline 
and work for young people. I believe in it. I believe they ought to be given 
definite tasks before they are twelve years of age. If you want my private 
opinion, I think it is good for them. But there are some difficulties here, 
and I think we ought to thrash them out as much as we can. I think there 
are some practical considerations in this picture. Primarily, you are able tc 
get this money—speaking now from the standpoint of the political and gov- 
ernmental aspects of it—, you are able to get this money largely on the basis 
that these young people cannot find employment. 

Now, the minute you move down below the level of, say sixteen, you get 
into an altogether new and different category of needs, because nobody will 
agree and you would not even make the argument on that basis that a child 
under sixteen is unemployed. You wouldn’t say that. You would say the 
child is financially unable to go to school. But, primarily, you get funds for 
the thing we are doing because there is a unit out here caught in a blind 
alley and he can’t get on with his own individual life. That is why you get 


this money. 

I recognize you have a problem here. I think you gentlemen know more 
about this than I do, but I remember the last figures that I had on this sub- 
ject indicated there were between three and three and a half million young 
people between the ages of fourteen and seventeen who were not in high 
school, for some reason or other, and who had not completed their high 
school courses. Of course, that does not constitute a terrific problem if the 
figure is anywhere near that, and that does correspond to the total popu- 
lation in that age group, and once you subtract the six and a half from 
the 750,000 that are now in high school, that makes up your age group, 
that automatically takes away from that final figure of three and a half 
million. Is that about right, Dr. Reeves and Dr. Judd? 


QUESTION: If you call the high school senior four years, that may be 
right, but does that mean out of school entirely? 


MR. WILLIAMS: As I understand, that is the group that is not in 
high school but belongs to high school grades. 


QUESTION: A number are in the elementary grades. 
MR. WILLIAMS: That goes on down. 
QUESTION: They are not entirely out of school. 

















1940} ProceepDINcs oF TwENTy-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 95 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think that is where there is some discrepancy, there 
are some not in high school that are in the elementary school, but there are 
plenty, whether it is two and a half million or three. 


QUESTION: That includes people who are not near enough to a high 
school to go anyway. That includes those for whom high school opportunity 
is not provided by the neighboring community. 


MR. WILLIAMS: For instance, in Alabama, Mr. Bryan, there are 
70,000 youngsters living in rural areas that have not gone to high school at 
all, that are in the high school group, and there is no possibility of their 
going to high school unless something like this could come along and give 


the financial means. 


QUESTION: The other thing that comes along, Mr. Williams—it has 
been suggested by your question—, in some of the states, the state has taken 
the responsibility for these youngsters who, in their local habitats, cannot 
get a high school opportunity and they pay the tuition of this youngster, 
that is, the state pays the tuition of the youngster to go to a high school that 
is further away from home. There is a clear case in which the state has 
taken the responsibility of providing a high school opportunity where the 
local community does not provide that high school opportunity for the 
youngster. 


QUESTION: Following along that, where the tuition is not paid to the 
school but is paid to the child, he may use that for his subsistence in a 
neighboring town. 

QUESTION: Yes, the boarding scheme has been worked out in a good 
many states. 

MR. WILLIAMS: The thing that interests me here, and I think it is 
of great significance, is that you school people are saying that this thing that 
has been tried for those above sixteen as a means by which they could go 
on and stay in school, ought to be expanded to include a group below six- 
teen. I think that is important. Now, how many of you are prepared to 
say that that, in your judgment, ought to be done? (About nine hands 
raised.) How many think it would be an unwise thing to undertake? (Seven 
hands raised.) 

QUESTION: The need is there, I don’t know how it ought to be met, 
but there is a need there. 

MR. WILLIAMS: There is a need there, but you are not yet ready to 
say how it ought to be met. 

QUESTION: It ought to be in the national policy. I am not familiar 
enough with the program to say. 

MR: WILLIAMS: In your own school, would that be acceptable to 
you? 




















96 Nationa Association oF SEcoNDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


QUESTION: Anything that would give the help would be acceptable. 


MR. WILLIAMS: That is what I am asking: In each of your schools, 
would this thing coming down to fourteen be acceptable? 


QUESTION: You can’t find jobs enough for all of them. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Let’s take a vote on it. (About twelve hands raised.) 
They don’t seem to be voting much in the middle part of the country, the 
two Coasts are voting pretty strongly. 

QUESTION: Isn’t there another point there, Mr. Williams, that has 
not been brought out: There are not funds enough to take care of those we 
have above sixteen and include these others. You would spread your butter 
so thin, it would not taste, it would not spread. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think we have gotten some soundings here and it 
is very interesting. Let’s talk about the question that is implied here, that 
I want to talk about. How many of you feel this thing we did last year, in 
saying that no youth should be on the roll for less than $3.00 a month was 
wise? How many think that was a wise move? (About ten hands raised) 
How many of you think it should have been left the way it was? (Six hands 
raised) I think I win on that score. Let me ask you this: How many of you 
would like to see the amount shoved up, so that next year we would get 
on a level where no youth would be on for less, say, than $4.00? How many 
think that would be helpful, considering the whole tone and health of the 
idea? How many would like to see it raised up to $4.00? (No response) 

QUESTION: Not unless the small school collected the $4.00 in Novem- 
ber for October and November. Sometimes you can’t get enough work to 
give him $4.00 worth of work. 

MR. WILLIAMS: You would like then to have it so it would be more 
than $4.00 in one given month. 

QUESTION: Yes, but it could be accumulated. 

MR. WILLIAMS: Would you push that to say that you would want to 
have more than $6.00 in one given month? How many would like to have 
an arrangement whereby you would say it should average not more than 
$6.00 a month in nine months, but you should allow the student to earn 
more than $6.00 in any one given month? How many would like that ar- 
rangement? (Eight hands raised) 


QUESTION: It seems to me it would be a good idea to let the work 
accumulate in the months they can do the work, but keep the pay more 
regular. I don’t think it would be wise to pay a youngster $10.00 one month 
and nothing the next, but the work will work out that way, especially out- 
of-doors work, landscaping and so forth. 


QUESTION: Isn’t there a tendency to take too much time away from 

















1940] ProckEDINGs OF TWENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 97 


the school? If you are paying twenty cents an hour, which is a rather good 
wage for a youngster in most communities, that is thirty hours a month, 
and if he is trying to pull a load in school and working, too, isn’t that too 
much? 


MR: WILLIAMS: You think there is danger of lumping up more work 
than the student can perform and carry on his school work. How many 
would like to see it remain as it is, with a top of $6.00? (About ten hands 
raised) It seems there are some mighty wise people, I didn’t get anybody 
to agree to change some of these things. 


QUESTION: I think you will find the waiting list quite large for youths 
who are eligible. A number of youths have made application and can’t get 
anything, because there is no further work. There are some very keen cases 
that come up. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You want more money? (Laughter) 
QUESTION: That’s the idea. (Laughter) 
MR. WILLIAMS: Well, Congress is in session. (Laughter) 


QUESTION: It seems to me there is a big advantage in having this 
work done regularly throughout the school year rather than bunching it up, 
as has been suggested. I think those regular work habits are a fine thing 
for the pupil. 

MR. WILLIAMS: Well now, let’s go on to another phase of it. A lot 
of people come and say: “This work does not stand up,” that the work we 
are doing isn’t good. You all are put in the position where you can’t very 
easily refuse this money, and the community would look askance at you 
and you would be criticized if, over on the other side of the country, they 
are taking it and youngsters are getting help but you are refusing it and you 
are a heartless kind of a “critter” and you are not doing your share and 
part by these deserving young children who are poor, and finally you suc- 
cumb. But, as a matter of fact, the thing does not stand up and you know 
in your heart that it does not stand up, but you can’t say much and you 
do the best you can with it, but honestly you don’t think much of it, and 
as compared to the work done, this work isn’t good. 

I think we ought to be frank with each other. I can say to you frankly 
and honestly that I don’t want to be a part of something that is teaching 
young people dishonest work habits and teaching them to take money from 
their government under false pretenses and under conditions that you can- 
not respect or any other honest man could not respect. If those conditions 
are true, we ought to face them and tell Congress that this thing is not what 
it should be, we cannot make it work, it is not the kind of thing that should 
be given to young people, and try to find some other way to do this. We 
are not irrevocably committed to this. We have tried something now, and if 









































be 














| February 


98 NarionaL AssocIATION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PRINCIPALS 


it has not worked, we ought to frankly face it and we ought not to go along 
with it. 

QUESTION: I think there is no doubt about the fact that seme of the 
criticisms of that fact are justified in individual circumstances, but I think 
it is due to two things that are not generally recognized. The first is, this 
is the selected process operating in the designation that the youngsters are 
going to do this. They are not the cream of the crop, you can’t expect them 
to do the cream of the job; you can’t expect them to do as good a job as 
you would expect of the average youngster, granting there are individual 
exceptions. The other thing is that this is something new that struck every- 
body as a big job all at once, an emergency measure, and we school teachers 
aren’t awfully fast with catching up with new ideas and making them work 


efficiently. 
MR. WILLIAMS: You would not want anybody else to say that. 


(Laughter) 

QUESTION: Of course not, but it takes a little while to work these 
things out, and it is going to take a while for the school people to work out 
how to use this thing as a good educational device. 

I have been tremendously interested in what one of your units in Ohio 
has done to work with the supervisors of the NYA projects to get the youths 
to work on these projects. I think, in my instance, I have done what others 
have done, I have been so busy I have not bothered with the youngsters, I 
have not taken the time to give them any supervisory help at all. But if we 
had in my particular community a NYA supervisor who came around and 
said, once in a while: “What are you doing to make this a good educational 


process for the youngsters?” maybe I would do more about it. 


QUESTION: Personally, I have been working with it ever since it 
started and I am very much in favor of the program, in fact, I have only 
had, in the five years I have worked with it, about four or five students who 
took the attitude of trying to beat the thing. 

The thing we usually try to do—I don’t say that I supervise the whole 
thing—, I try to discuss the need and all with this youngster, and also what 
they are capable of doing and assigning that student to a job that he is 
capable of doing, and pay him a wage that is comparable with the wages 
of the community, and then demand that he does the job. 

This year, we have had to dismiss one student from a program, because 
the check-up on him, assignment of the job of work of which he was plenty 
capable of doing, showed he refused to do it. We kept calling his attention 
to it, and we finally said we could not use him if he did not want to do the 
work. I think the first thing is that it is a way of building character. 

We had a girl who took the attitude that she was working too long hours. 
She said: “What difference does it make as long as the government is 


























1940] ProceEDINGS OF TWENTy-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 99 


paying for it?” But we said: “We are responsible to the supervisor.” I told 
her she could do the work and do a good job, or else we would put some- 
body else in her place. Personally, it worked in our system. 


QUESTION: Another thing there, if you are going to hold these stu- 
dents who are in training for work up to 100% and throw the whole thing 
over if they don’t come up to that, what about our academic work where 
we let them pass at 70% or “C minus”? (Laughter and applause ) 


MR. WILLIAMS: Maybe they are holding us to a higher standard than 
that. Let’s go ahead. 


QUESTION: I think if the program has not worked, in most cases it 
might be an indictment against the administration’s supervision, I mean the 
local administration. If the supervision is carefully planned, in my experi- 
ence it has worked out very well. For example, we have assigned NYA 
work to boys, and in the cafeteria work we use the cafeteria supervisor, in 
office work we use the commercial teacher, in maintenance work the janitor 
is responsible and reports and supervises those youngsters, and we have 
found they have received an excellent training. A great many of those are 
of the more mediocre types and still they have received training that has 
developed them to the point where they have been absorbed in industry in 
these fields. I think the program has been a tremendous boon. I know it 


has to our community. 


QUESTION: I would like to say that wherever work is well planned 
and is socially significant and useful, if the one supervising it has the right 
attitude toward it to get good results, sometimes the work does not amount 
to more than raking leaves by the WPA, and I think that is the reason some 
of us don’t get behind it. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Let me ask you this: How many of you have these 
youngsters immediately under you, so you know what sort of work is per- 
formed? (About twelve hands raised) All right, you self same people, how 
many of you feel that you can honestly say that this work they do, to your 
own knowledge, stands out in your field so that you can respect it? (The 
same number of hands raised) How many of you feel you can’t sponsor 
and respect it as work? (No response) 


QUESTION: Yes, if you will let me say it is probably my fault. 


MR. WILLIAMS: We are not saying whose fault it is. Well, that is 
very interesting. Now, let’s go a little farther. What could we do, first of 
all, we put on a man in every state, last year, with some considerable fear 
and trembling, to go out and see if he could help make this thing better, 
helping you both on the book work and the work program. How many of 
vou have had a visit from some such person during the year? (Five hands 
raised—IlJinois, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington ) 




















100 Nationa. AssoctaTIon oF SEcoNDARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


QUESTION: I think Mr. Robertson, in Michigan, came to see our man. 
QUESTION: Maybe they have had conferences, Mr. Williams. 


MR. WILLIAMS: They are supposed to go to the individual school. 

QUESTION: The Ohio man has been to see me. 

MR. WILLIAMS: How many of you feel that sort of thing has helped 
you, been a help to you in doing this job? (Same hands raised) How many 
of you would welcome more of that assistance? (Three hands raised) 

Let’s talk about that a little bit. It is only around five o'clock now and 
you haven’t done very much today, you have only been in meetings since 
about eight o’clock this morning. This is a particular point and we are not 
going to go on very much longer, it is ten after five, suppose we say we 
will adjourn at five-thirty. Is that all right? I am anxious to get some posi- 
tive things out of this. What suggestions have you that you think would be 
helpful at this point in making this thing a better and a more worthwhile 
undertaking? 

QUESTION: If your supervisors, or whatever you call them, when going 
around the country making the suggestions, find out the schools in which, 
without any help from him, the school people have done a good job to make 
this function, and then let those school people tell us how they did it, be- 
cause we will take it from our own school people quicker than we will take 
it from you. 

MR. WILLIAMS: Say that over again. (Laughter) I am not chal- 
lenging your statement. 

QUESTION: Find out the schools where a good job has been done and 
then get those school people to tell the rest of us school people how they 
did it. 

DR. JUDD: The April bulletin of the Department of Secondary School 
Principals is being issued by a small committee of your own group, and it 
is going to contain a whole series of illustrations of projects they picked 
out of a big handful they collected from all over the country. I think they 
are going to satisfy pretty definitely the point you are bringing up. 

QUESTION: I think that is fine, Dr. Judd, but it will take a lot of 
bulletins of that kind before all of us are going to read one of them. 


QUESTION: I think if you put it in the official organ of each State 
Educational Association. 


QUESTION: This gentleman said they would take it from the student. 


MR. WILLIAMS: No, he means the school fellow would accept it from 
some other school fellow. 


QUESTION: You know the channels there are, radio, pamphlets, every- 

















101 





































1940] PRocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 
thing under the sun you can use to get information around, we make 
progress imitating each other. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Good things don’t travel far very easily. 
QUESTION: You have to provide the transportation. 


QUESTION: In the State of Illinois, we have our annual conference, 
they have conference meetings in which they try to teach us a good job of 
teaching history. Why can’t we have a NYA section just as a history section? 
I have tried for three years to get that thing started in Illinois and I haven’t 
succeeded yet. 


QUESTION: These discussion groups of secondary education are work- 
ing rather successfully in many of the states; this could be made a topic 
for discussion in those discussion groups. 


MR. WILLIAMS: The women are not doing much talking. 


QUESTION: In Wisconsin, we have such a bulletin. Every six weeks, 
the NYA gets up a beautiful bulletin telling what is done over the state 
and it is highly beneficial to the people doing NYA. 


QUESTION: What would be the advantage, if any, of tying up these 


out-of-school projects in teaching additional work? 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think there would be every advantage of tying up 
the out-of-school work with the in-school work. 


QUESTION: It seems to me that expands the opportunities of that 
school and tying a definite, continuous program to that school. 


QUESTION: Mr. Williams, I know this probably will not be well re- 
received in some places, but it seems to me that in a large metropolitan area, 
where you had say $50,000. more to spend on scholarships, that if some 
supervision could be provided from the NYA appropriations to help manage 
a thing like that. You have very fine supervision for NYA projects, and if 
such an individual could be assigned to the superintendent of staff, to help 
administer it and relieve them of that, I believe this work program in the 
schools could be made more effective. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Well, you are right on to a hot spot there. 
QUESTION: We want Washington to have something done about it. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You see from the start, some of us have said that 
this program is going to be good or it is going to be no good, according to 
what the school people made out of it, and that unless the school people 
took it and really ran it, that it was impossible to undertake. I still think 
that is absolutely true. For instance, you have 29,000 high schools, 28,000 
high schools participating in the fund. Now, if you were to attempt to 
employ supervision in the 28,000 high schools, you would be sunk. Further- 











102. Nationa Association oF Seconpary-ScHoot Principats [February 


more, if you tried to do it, you could not hire anything comparable to the 
ability that exists in those schools right now, unless you had an extra hun- 
dred million dollars to pay for it. So, frankly, this thing will be done by 
you people or it is gone. There isn’t any use fooling ourselves. You cannot 
provide supervision for this job out of the money that you can get from 
Congress. Furthermore, no such supervsion exists; even if you had the 
money, you could not go out and hire it. It just does not exist. You are the 
only people who can furnish it. 

I mean, as desirable as it might be to have in a few places somebody to 
help out, the principle of this thing seems to me to be fundamental, that 
is that this must be turned over to you and you must manage it, you must 
run it, and it must be run by the people you hire and the people you pay. 
As far as I am concerned, that is basic. 


QUESTION: That is the way it should be, exactly. That is one trouble 
with some of the other projects right now, there are too many supervisors, 
and you can’t do anything because of the supervisors. I think it is much 
better to have it in the hands of the school people. (Applause ) 

QUESTION: May I ask a question? You don’t need to answer it if 
you don’t want. Just why was that $3.00 minimum put on? I have girls 
in my school who belong to large families, they do need some help, yet 
they find it difficult at twenty cents an hour, which we pay the girls. They 
would rather work ten hours a 1. ynth and get $2.00 Of course, they can 
do that, but it seems to me in Iow,, where the economic situation is a little 
more even, that it would have been better if we could have scattered that 
money out to more people and pay $2.00 a month, or something like that. 
Our County Association of Schoo] Superintendents took that up and they 
were unanimous, they thought it would serve the purpose better without 
the $3.00 a month minimum. I am honest in asking the question. 


QUESTION: That is our problem now. We have our $3.00 minimum, 
our quota is $222.00 with about seventy-five active workers. You have so 
many inactives, we keep changing the jobs. 

QUESTION: I sometimes think we expect too much of these children 
is the whole trouble. You expect a degree of efficiency which adults have 
obtained through a long period of study and effort, and these students do 
not do the clerical work as well as older people, but we should not expect 


them to. 
One of our primary teachers was trying to teach a little fellow a capital 


“O,” the little fellow went to his sister, who had just returned from an 
eastern college, she said: “You do it this way.” He said: “Yes, I know, but 
that is just damned hard for me to do.” (Laughter) 

MR. WILLIAMS: We are getting a little off the track here. (Laughter) 
On that $3.00 business, our feeling about that was that unless you took as 











1940} ProceEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 103 


your basis that a child could not stay in school with any degree of decency 
in the matter of food and clothing unless he had this help, that anything 
below $3.00—and my personal opinion is that is too low—don’t make sense. 
That unless that constitutes the help necessary ‘to keep him in school, you 
can’t make anything out of it. 

We have thousands of children all over America getting $1.00 a month. 
Frankly, I think that is a bad and unhealthy thing. I think $3.00 is bad. I 
think we would be in a much healthier condition from the standpoint of 
developing the child to the seriousness of this operation and the validity of 
it if we had it higher than that. 

You see what I am trying to say: If we get below a certain level, the 
thing becomes a kind of grab bag from which everybody gets a little and 
your real validity, the reason why the nation would do it, gets mighty 
thin. I think that is basic for everything we do. We just have to watch that. 

In the college program, we got down to $5.00 and we found certain col- 
leges giving 100 students $5.00 each. You know that they are just handing 
out all they have on a $5.00 level. That isn’t being honest. I don’t think 
that is honest. I don’t think you can find 100 young people whose economic 
situation is so identical as to make that thing an honest distribution of that 
money. Therefore, I think you get up to a point where you say $10.00 con- 
stitutes the lowest level on which you ought to go in distributing federal 
money, and anything less than that, you are on shaky grounds even talking 
about saying that constitutes the difference between their going to school 
in a decent and proper way. Whether that is sound reasoning, you can 
judge, you can say, “I don’t agree with you,” but that is the basis of the 
reasoning. 


QUESTION: A time or two, it has been mentioned here on evaluating 
the work program. I sat on the Executive Committee of the North Central, 
last Saturday, when that Committee voted $2500.00 to be used by the Ameri- 
can Youth Commission: in case they needed additional funds to make a 
study of practices and procedures and even out-of-school work programs, 
and make those materials available to secondary school men of the country. 
I just thought that was a matter of interest. 


MR. WILLIAMS: We would welcome anything like that. Let me ask 
you all this (interrupted) 


QUESTION: Here is a probability: Three of the Regional Associations 
combined with this enterprise in the American Youth Commission and we 
are authorized to spend the money to do exactly the thing you mentioned, 
to find where the work is being done right, what can be done to improve 
it, and then make it available to all those who are cooperating. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I would like to ask one further question about this 
work program: That is, how many of you have succeeded in making the 














104. Nationa AssoctaTION oF SeconpaRY-ScHooL Principats_ [February 


work that the student does a part of the student’s school work, so that the 
two are linked together? How many of you feel that, at least in some in- 
stances in your schools, you have been able to do that? (About ten hands 
raised ) 

QUESTION: About thirty per cent. (Voices from floor, “Partly”) 


MR. WILLIAMS: That is very interesting. Do you feel as you go along 
in the thing that it has increasing possibilities of that character for you? 
(Voices from floor, “Yes.”) Do you feel this thing is leading somewhere 
educationally? Is that right? What are the obstacles, what are the problems 
of getting that expanded and getting it done almost 100%? What are your 
difficulties? 


QUESTION: The biggest problem is that junior high group or seventh 
graders who are about sixteen, who are assigned a job and can’t do the 
work. They are the only real problem. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I notice in your reports that fifteen per cent of the 
total secondary school work did janitorial or maintenance work, 15.1% 
Colleges make a very much better record there, they had 4.8% or 9%. 
Of course, in some instances you have rural high schools, that is on a differ- 
ent basis I think, and while it isn’t the most desirable kind of work, it 
frequently does lead to some very positive and good types of occupational 
activities there and we must not be blind to that. I think it is all right. 

I did not get your point. You say many of these students cannot do any- 
thing above the maintenance level ? 


QUESTION: It is difficult, it requires supervision. 


MR. WILLIAMS: What other things would you suggest? What could 
the government do, what could we do to help you do that? That is the 
thing we are all terribly interested in. What is it you need? Do you need 
more staff, is that what you need? Do you need certain kinds of equip- 
ment, or is it experience of some other fellows where it has been done 
through other groups? 

QUESTION: I think in most cases we need more staff. I think most 
high school principals should agree there. I think if we had a supervisor of 
that work, we could get along better. 


MR. WILLIAMS: You think that is a very important consideration 
just here, or is that an important consideration over the whole thing? 


QUESTION: I think over the whole thing on all our problems. 


QUESTION: I just wonder if we can say that some of these assigned 
maintenance, if that isn’t helping them in our work. I know if there is no 
project of study, a lot of these we assign to maintenance never go to college 
and they usually go into some type of manual labor. 

















1940] PRocEEDINGs OF TWENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 105 


MR. WILLIAMS: How could that be related to any school work they 
were taking? 


QUESTION: If you enlarge the objectives of the school, then it belongs 
in the educational program. 


QUESTION: If you can cultivate proper work habits and wanting to 
do the job and being punctual and on time, I think that is good training. 


MR. WILLIAMS: In one sense, you call cultivating good work habits 
part of the educational program? 


QUESTION: We are always going to need that. We have to train the 
boy to work in school, vocational training. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. I think we might do well to be a little more 
strict in our interpretation is the thing I am trying to say here. That is, 
you have a youngster taking civics, what I am trying to say is, have you 
worked out work projects that are tied into the civic information and 
knowledge and intelligence of the community so that that child does work 
that aids him in understanding the subject matter in that particular field? 
That is what I am trying to say. Granted you have a course in engineering 
and you give work in maintenance, that is part of the program, but a good 
many of you haven’t got that. 

QUESTION: Is there a danger of differentiating and discouraging vol- 
untary work that a student not on the payroll would do? 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think you have a very interesting point there: Does 
the question: How much has this NYA discouraged and replaced that 
which used to be the honorary and voluntary work on the part of the 
students? Let’s ask that question here: How many of you have felt it has 
seriously impaired that and done away with that? How many of you think 
that activity is still going on and is in the prominent place that it used 
to have? (About five hands raised) 

QUESTION: Do you think the type of work the student does matters? 
After all, the program is to inculcate in the student the idea of doing the 
work well, whether it is maintenance work or typing. 

MR. WILLIAMS: I think you have a very interesting point there: Does 
the type of work the student does really make any difference to the value 
of the student? Who wants to speak to that? 


“ QUESTION: Wouldn’t it make the student realize this is necessary 
work and important work, not just helping him along and giving him 
money? That would make a difference. 

MR. WILLIAMS: He predicates his statement on the fact that in both 
instances the work is well done, it is well ordered, they do both jobs well, 
which has the most value: That which is tied into the studies of the child 

















106 Nationa AssoctaTion oF SeconDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


and is just as well ordered, and the value of work habits is just as good, 
which has the greater value to the child? That is the question he is raising. 


QUESTION: It would not matter, if it is proper training for citizenship. 
That is the part of the school job to teach him. 


QUESTION: If it is work that ties in with his regular assigned work, 
in some course, it seems to me you have a difficult problem of determining 
the work which he shall do, his regular work in preparation and work 
for which he shall be paid. You have a line of demarcation, he has to get 


his lessons, his assigned work. 


QUESTION: If he is paid for getting his lessons, then give him a higher 
mark. 

QUESTION: Isn’t it true that most of the other boys and girls in the 
school are earning it by personal service in that type of jobs? Aren’t these 
boys and girls doing the same thing as the boys and girls are doing in 
private accounts, aren’t they selling papers, fixing fires, and that sort of 
thing? I don’t think we are doing anything to lower the standard. 


MR. WILLIAMS: We are not saying that. I am just wondering if we 
have not broadened it, viewing what has happened in the last thirty or forty 
years, where work has gone out of the lives of the young people of this 
country, gone out of the lives of my boys. My boys come home, they go 
to the local high school, three of them do, they start right off working on 
automobiles, motorcycles. I have a whole lot of chickens around there, there 
isn’t much work to that. They have to earn what they get. Now, they do 
it with apparently great joy, at least they are all smutted up all the time, 
they never can get themselves clean. I say: “Do you get any of that stuff 
at school?” “No.” “What do you do?” “Oh, we study.” I have a feeling 
that the schools are somehow or other not giving these youngsters some- 
thing that they need desperately, and that is good hard work. 

Now, I don’t think this thing can be limited just to these youngsters who 
are going to be paid for it. I was up at Cornell and I asked one of the men 
there—curiously enough, his name was “Savage”, he came from Vermont—, 
I said: “What do you think of this thing?” He said: “I think it is going to 
live. I don’t think much of you.” (Laughter) But this is why he said it 
works: “You let the school handle it and they need work, and it is good 
for them.” He said: “You know what the trouble is, it should be extended 
to everybody in the school. I will tell you frankly that students come to me 
and beg to be given assignments or tasks like these NYA boys are per- 
forming, because they say “These boys are learning more than I am, and 
can’t I go with them out to the barn and do what they are doing?’” 


Now, that is the thing I am talking about. In other words, we have seen 
work go out of the lives of youth in America, and figures will show that 














1940] ProceEDINcs oF TwWENTy-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 107 


since 1890 there has actually been a decrease in the number, not the per- 
centage but the number of people employed in America, under twenty years 
of age. That in the face of your population increasing by leaps and bounds, 
so that we are fast reaching a point in American life where we have an 
actual non-existent work content in the lives of people under twenty years 
of age. I think, personally, it constitutes one of the most serious problems 


that we face as a civilization. 


You school people have got to find a way to put work into the lives of 
people under twenty years of age, and it can’t be a hit and miss work thing. 
It can’t be the kind of thing you are talking about. You said: “I don’t know 
what they do. I can’t bother with them. I have my own work to do.” It 
can’t be that. It has got to be work and real work and work that they know 
they have to give an account of or suffer some consequence, either social or 
material loss. 

What I think is important about this thing we are saying right now is that 
you all have a chance here, with this arrangement which you have under 
us, to experiment on a very wide and sweeping front of how to get work 
into the lives of young people, at least beginning at sixteen, although you 
are right to begin at fourteen, and in some instances before that, and that 
you are failing to do. 

I feel, to be intelligent, this work must be related to that which they are 
leading on toward. It is all right, so far as going out to take care of 
chickens if you never expect to go into the chicken business, but it would 
be better for the boy if, when he started Spanish, he had a project of actual 
disciplined work in connection with the Spanish teaching program. 

That is “old stuff” to all of us, but I think it is terribly important. I think 
now you have a great chance to do the thing that basically needs to be done. 
This one more comment and then I will quit talking: When you get to 
the big factor that stands out in our experience in the last four years, that 
over fifty per cent of the young people coming to us have to say they have 
never been required or had a chance to perform a single day’s disciplined 
work, now get the handicap that a child is under when he has to go out and 
try to get a job with that as his background. 


QUESTION: NYA has not scratched the surface. 


MR. WILLIAMS: We haven’t got the money. We do all we can, but 
we can’t reach all of them. 


QUESTION: In these latter remarks, you have not been talking specifi- 
cally about the NYA so much as the general educational program. It seems 
to me you have talked about the general educational problem and the youth 
problem, and the curriculum committees over the country, you can get help 
from them and they can get help from you and it can be worked out. 











108 Nationa AssoctaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL PrincipaLs [February 


MR. WILLIAMS: I would like to say this, that this past year one of 
the happy developments from the standpoint of learning has been the great 
degree to which there has come about an integration of this element in 
which whole groups have joined forces with other groups. We do, I think, 
have a happy relationship with the Office of Education, and we are working 
with Dr. Judd hand-and-glove. We have a very cordial relationship with 
the Youth Commission, Dr. Reeves and his whole connection; he is studying 
our work, he has his people in there and they are going to make soundings 
of what they feel, and the people in education are thinking of every 
youth in America, whereas, in a sense, we are only thinking of those we 
have money to help. Then the whole vocational group, we have developed 
some very fine relationships there. So, I see us all working at this thing just 
now with a better understanding among each other than we have ever 
had before, a very happy circumstance, that can be increased and aug- 
mented in the months to come, because we have got something. 


This is no passing thing. This isn’t a depression, this isn’t brought on by 
unemployment. This thing is a condition of society that is just as new as 
the industrial revolution was and just as fundamental, this fact that you 
have this vast population of young people with nowhere to go. You are not 
going to get rid of them if you were to push up your income to $5,000. a 
year for every man and woman in America; you would still have young 
people under twenty years of age, by the thousands, that could not get a 
job. You know how they can make things in America with such speed 
that you can’t use them. 

Some people call that a pessimistic view, but I am willing to be called 
that as long as I am willing to face the music. You have a situation that 
has never been present before in the history of mankind, and it is so im- 
portant that this thing we are talking about is linked up to that whole new 
social pattern that has come about in our very lifetime. 


In thinking of this work, thinking of what you are doing, I think you 
are tinkering with the future in an almost whole way, because this is the 
school’s business. What I am talking about is not the NYA, it is not a separ- 
ate government business; it is the school’s business. You people have got 
to meet this problem in America of providing positive arrangements for 
young people under sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years of age. It 
is going to be your job. It isn’t your job because you failed to do it. 


QUESTION: We can’t do it. The San Francisco papers last summer 
answered your statement, it is just what they are saying now, pouring over 
the cover why it isn’t true. It is a defeatist attitude, they are all being taken 


care of—they are not! 


MR. WILLIAMS: Well you are making progress. In the first place, you 








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109 


1940] PRrocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 


are leaders, you people who are here, you meet here and go over and over 
and over, don’t you? 

QUESTION: I am not sure that I agree with your economics report, 
but before you adjourn the meeting, I would like to say that a lot of us feel 
our personal appreciation to you for coming here. Now, a lot of us repub- 
licans have said some nasty things about you. (Laughter) That was partly 
because we are republicans, but partly because we misunderstood what you 
were doing and because we misunderstood what you are up against. I have 
changed my opinions, this afternoon. I think if we spend more time doing 
this sort of thing, we will spend less time calling names and not doing 
something about it. (Laughter) 

MR. WILLIAMS: I guess you are all pretty tired and I don’t think I 
want to delay this. I have a lot of other things I would like to ask you and 
talk about. 

QUESTION: Evidently, there is going to be a report made of this. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. 


QUESTION: May we have the report? 
MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Church, I understand, has provided for that. 


MR. WILLIAMS: I would be very glad to, if we are unable to get him 
to do it. I think what you have said here might be given a very much 
broader distribution than brought out here. 

I want to make one announcement before I close, that is, there is a more 
mature consideration of how to spend the funds we get next year. We have 
decided to make a distribution of a straight reduction of whatever amount 
we get within three categories, so if a reduction comes to fifteen per cent in 
every group, college, high school, and out-of-school work, each will take 
an equal reduction of fifteen per cent. You are to disregard this other thing 
that came out, and the proposal we will make to the Congressional Com- 
mittee is that there be an equitable distribution of the cut among the three 
categories, rather than that which was previously arranged. 


QUESTION: Mr. Williams, I wonder what effort is being made to 
make a permanent appropriation to the schools by the government of the 
United States. Is there a possibility of its being done? I think if it is only 
a temporary measure, it will be treated that way, and that probably has 

-contributed to the limit of its progress already. 


MR. WILLIAMS: That is a matter for Congress, entirely within the 
province of Congress, and there is always a natural feeling on the part of 
those people sponsoring the movement to entrench it as much as they can 
in order to keep it from being uprooted. I do not have anything that I 
would care to say at this moment. We are going through the process of 

















110 Nationa Association oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


trying to get next year’s appropriation, and until that matter is settled, I 
think it is the wise part of our judgment not to discuss the other proposition. 


QUESTION: We have been reminded many times in this meeting and 
other meetings that the school’s responsibility does not cease when the stu- 
dent drops out of school, so I was wondering, in communities in which the 
schools are trying to do something so far as placement and so on, is any 
arrangement being made by which this out-of-school program could link up 
with the school in helping on that thing? 


MR. WILLIAMS: I think very decidedly it can, and it is being done in 
a lot of places. You school people and our people ought to be working hand- 
in-glove. We should be helping you get more equipment, get better facilites, 
taking cues from you as to what we can do to fit into the needs of the com- 
munity, we in turn helping you in every way we can. That is my attitude 
about it. You in turn should be giving us direction and assistance and 
opening up your schools to these youngsters who are not in the schools and 
have left for one reason or another, and giving to us the means of improving 
your plant. 


QUESTION: If there are a few here interested in the NYA, will you 
spare a few minutes here to discuss that? 


MR. WILLIAMS: I will be happy to. 


QUESTION: I know there are people here who are interested not only 
in the NYA projects, but also communities. | am wondering if there are 
any school people here that think it would be advisable to suggest to you 
some place this summer as a teaching place where you set up a laboratory 
in connection with a similar school for four or five days, to train principals 
and superintendents or teachers in the problem of their working this NYA 
program, if it has an educational possibility, and the type of work that many 
are trying to get on that can’t get on because of the experience the people 
are getting. One of the handicaps is lack of knowledge on the part of us 
school people to know how to handle it. There is no use for us to dodge it. 
It is a new program, but I profit by learning what the other school man is 
doing, and I pass on to him something I learn. It might be money well spent 
to collect at some school, set up a laboratory or workshop, in the interest of 
directing NYA, and put into those places what you found most successful 
for school men over the country, so our people who are in summer school 
can get the benefit of it. We ought to welcome it rather than try to get rid 
of it. We want to hold on to it. 


MR. WILLIAMS: Let me say this finally in closing, that in each of our 
places we have state directors, we have our regular people, and what is 
needed, as I feel, we need more positive proof on the part of you all to say 
to us what we can do for those pupils. These people labor under my general 














1940 | PRrocEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 111 


policy that I don’t want them to go in and take this job from you. I am 
not going to ever let it happen as long as I have anything to say about it. 
If you don’t want the job, then it is going by the boards. That is the attitude 
I take. Therefore, they are reluctant to moving in, in their relations with 
you. I would rather let it work out over a period of years than to be pushing 
a thing and do some violence to this basic relationship that we have estab- 
lished in America. 


I mean this: We would be in a sorry fix if the school people of America 
cannot be trusted with work of this kind. Our civilization is certainly in a 
bad way. That is what I would like to tell Congress. (Laughter) 


I wish you would feel free to write to me anything about it that you think 
I ought to know, or Dr. Judd, and I know Dr. Reeves feels the same way. 
He has been a real uncle to this and Dr. Judd over here, I guess I should 
say he is a grand uncle. I have been very happy to see you all, and thank 
you very much. (Applause) 


Adjournment at 5:50 P. M. 


ADJOURNMENT SINE DIE 

















FOURTH GENERAL SESSION 
Wednesday, February 28, 1940 


The fourth general session of the convention was divided into three 
groups. 


THE JUNIOR HIGH-SCHOOL PROGRAM 

The junior high-school group met in Committee Room 3-B of the 
Municipal Auditorium. 

Principal Edwin D. Martin of Hamilton Junior High School, Hous- 
ton, Texas, presided. The Chairman introduced J. Paul Leonard, Pro- 
fessor of Secondary Education, Leland Stanford University, California, 
who read his paper. 


FRONTIERS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION 


J. Paut Leonarp 


Stanford University 


The Roman people applied the term nullius filius to a boy without 


inheritable rights. The term really meant “the son of nobody.” While 
from one point of view the application of this term to the junior high 
school can be challenged, from another position the term may have some 
interesting implications. 

The junior high school was born of confused parents. Purposes, re- 
view, transition, content, and materials confused the mother—the elemen- 
tary parent; while numbers, courses, requirements, college, vocations, life, 
and failures confused the father—the secondary parent. From these two 
came an offspring, a son of confusion. The paternal tradition of society 
held true, for the boy took his father’s name—high school, a junior high 
school. His nurses were chosen pretty largely from his father’s line, and 
the paternal customs became the boy’s catechism. His father and mother 
struggled over supremacy, each judging the development of the child in 
terms of his own standards. Living in such an unintegrated home atmos- 
phere, the youth has justified his name—the son of confusion. You prob- 
ably know this child more intimately than I do, although I have tried to 
teach him and for several years have worked with him and his parents, 
seeking to establish a better relationship among them. Let us together then, 
for a short period, become psychoanalysts and propose an environment and 
a series of principles which will make this child a better adjusted indi- 
vidual. For this purpose let us drop the analogy. 

In the first place, we need to establish a clearer and more wholesome 
relationship between the senior high school and the elementary school. The 


112 








1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 113 


leaders in the senior high school are so busy attending to business—the 
business of selecting courses agreeable to the university and to its prize 
pupils—the teachers, of punching holes in the ribbon of a master clock so 
the routine will not be disturbed, of grading by respectable standards—so 
busy that they do not have time to sit down to discuss the work in other 
units of the school system. Senior high-school teachers expect junior 
youth to enter high school, so why shouldn’t they prepare to do so as 
quickly as possible? But the elementary teacher has lived all day with the 
child, trying to understand his every whim, helping him adjust to the 
group about him, teaching him something of the community in which he 
lives, and guiding him into new experiences so that he feels secure in each 
new environment. The senior high teacher feels there are so many things 
the youth must know about the world, and as he is soon approaching 
puberty, he will be a changed boy, an entirely different boy, suddenly con- 
scious of his place in life. But the elementary teacher sees him basically 
as the same boy, but with different emerging interests and with needed 
modifications in his developing social consciousness. She feels the process 
of growing up is continuous with some continuation of familiar tech- 
niques and experiences, but with the gradual emergence of different materi- 
als and processes. The senior high teacher feels that the youth needs to 
become stable to take on the serious business of study for life. He has 
played long enough. The elementary school has nursed him; the senior 
high school will get him ready for a vocation and for cultural respect. 


What kind of a reformed relationship do we desire? Without com- 
ment, for we may be able to comment during the discussion, let me set 
forth some suggested adjustments. 


1. Teachers in both elementary and senior high schools need to merge 
their understanding of development of children, either by more 
careful study of the individual children or by acquaintance with 
psychological studies of the development of children and youth. 
Teachers need to understand that development is a continuous 
process, not one of arbitrary stages each with such a distinct pattern 
that we spend much of our time discussing how to articulate them. 

. Teachers from all levels need to sit down together and talk on an 
equal basis of understanding and mutual respect. Each needs to 
clear his mind of the notion that the other has a special job to 
do and when one has completed it, the other will begin. 

3. All teachers need to realize more completely that whatever youth 
eventually become, the result will be the product of the guidance of 
all who have dealt with them, and that the codperative thinking of 
all groups is needed throughout the entire period of schooling. 

4. All teachers need to realize that whatever development takes place 


hm 











114 Nationat Association oF Seconpary-ScHoot Principats [February 


is the result of living with people and with problems, and is not 
an automatic result of arranging a schedule of a program of study 
which contains assigned jobs to be performed. 


In the second place, the junior high school needs a changed program 
for the development of junior youth. The present program is the result of 
dissatisfactions: dissatisfaction with the traditional work of the later years 
of the elementary school, characterized largely by review of what the child 
had learned for six years so that he might make a favorable impression 
upon the high-school teachers; dissatisfaction, too, with the first year of 
the high-school program, a program so heavily laden with new experiences 
and divisional organization that many youth failed to respond successfully 
to it and either resented it or drew away from it. Any program which 
tries to squeeze itself in between two other rather definitely organized 
programs and represent on the one hand a transition and on the other an- 
ticipatory preparation is bound to be confusing and inappropriate. It is 
likely to be lean and barren, constantly under fire, and on the defensive. 
Those who administer it are likely to spend much time in discussing ar- 
ticulation, which in itself is ample evidence of broken continuity. 


The program for junior youth should be one of positive action, clearly 
defined with relation to needs, to organic changes, and to interests and 
potentialities that are emerging. It should be neither review nor prepar- 
ation for something to follow. Its main emphasis should be on the con- 
tinuity and present living, and the designing of the program should be 
the responsibility of those who have worked with children, with adoles- 
cents, and with adults. It should be codperatively determined with relation 
to the continuous development of children and with no respect to the 
vested interests of any institution wishing to engage the youth in the future 
or with the dominance of any that has dealt with the child in the past. 


What kind of changed program will we recommend? Again may I 
suggest some adjustments without extended comments. 


1. Those who direct junior youth, either by direct teaching of infor- 
mation or by more indirect guidance, must realize that the world 
in which they grew up has undergone major modifications which 
makes obsolete the school program that was offered to them. Em- 
ployment is delayed; inventions have complicated living; economic 
idleness is a real possibility, and the need for social understanding 
and experience in resolving personal and social difficulties is greater 
to-day than ever before. Our educational position has been modified. 
Growth is known to be more unitary—information, activity and 
emotions all taking their part in learning, and the control of one’s 
own behavior is considered to result from engaging in immediate 


problems. 








oa FF. ow 


1940] 








nm 








ProckEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 115 


Out of this realization will come the determination to analyze 
critically the existing program and to proceed to put our house in 
order. Such a study may reveal such things as the following: 


. The departmentalization of the program for this junior period is 


out of harmony with what we know about development. Junior 
youth do not possess the adjustment possibilities for quickly chang- 
ing from the guidance of one person to the assignments of five, or 
from shifting from a unified emphasis to a specialized interest. 


. The present program, sprouting from the ideas of early speciali- 


zation, broadening and finding courses, and surveys of major fields 
of learning tends to lead to disintegration and confusion. 


. The present aim of looking toward vocational choices is too far 


removed from the reality of the immediate or near future of the 
junior youth. His vocational life, if any specific skill training is 
needed for it, will not likely begin for four or six years. But re- 
gardless of whether specific skill training is needed for the job of 
his choice, or whether he does begin work immediately, the con- 
tinued development of his powers of personal and social adjustment 
are his most effective vocational training during this period. 


. The guidance program designed for junior youth is too mechanical, 


consisting of home rooms (too frequently administrative devices 
for taking the roll), segregation based upon a narrow basis for 
prediction (the intelligence test), directions for studying the sub- 
ject at hand, units of orientation to a bewildering world, special 
counselors, canned directions for behavior and selection of courses. 
and an arbitrary and weakly defensible system of requirements 


and electives. 


. The program for the development of citizenship is too bookish, 


too much confidence is placed upon texts or courses in American 
history, world cultures, occupations, civics, or government. 


. The program reflects too much the idea of preparation for the 


senior high school. It has been the chief period for teaching the 
grammar of the mother tongue, for meeting a few state legislative 
requirements, for getting outlines of major sweeps in the world’s 
history, and for absorbing a lean amount of scattered ideas and 
information about the fields of science and mathematics. The stock 
is a hybrid of pure strains, watered by a surveying gardener. 


. The positive program of action designed to replace the present one 


may include two major areas: 


. The first one we may call the area of socialization. This would in- 


volve two aspects—the satisfactory solution of personal problems 
and the understanding of the social environment to the potential 











116 Nationat AssociaTIoN oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [| February 


possibilities of junior maturity. This implies that throughout the 
three years of his development, this junior youth will make an 
extended study of problems growing out of the following: (1) The 
character of the physical and emotional changes in his own organ- 
ism; (2) The social traditions surrounding his attempt to become a 
conscious member of a larger social group and his relationships 
with the opposite sex; (3) The cultural resources of the community 
in which he lives; (4) The organic and inorganic world with 
which he is surrounded; (5) The principles and practices of or- 
ganizing and governing in the school and the larger community; 
(6) Contact with agencies and people who are serving him; and 
(7) Experiences in becoming a participating part of the community. 

Continued practice should be given in helping junior youth to 
plan and choose their own activities, to use the democratic method 
of scientific investigation of all problems, to improve their use of 
language and numerical relationships required in the solution of 
their problems, to have practice in selecting those who shall repre- 
sent them in small legislative and judicial groups. 


This program would require the majority of the time of the junior 
youth during the first year of his period of emerging adolescence, and it 
snould be carried forward under the guidance of one or not to exceed two 
teachers. During the next two years of development, this socializing pro- 
gram would occupy about half of the youth’s time, and should still be 
carried by one teacher or possibly a team of two. 


The organizing center of such a program of socialization should be the 
problems which emerge from the youth’s experience in new situations, For 
this work, there need be no administrative divisions into fifty-minute peri- 
ods, or instructional divisions into subjects. 

b. The second major area of the program we may call one of interest 
developing. This is a division planned to give the youth an oppor- 
tunity to discover and partially develop interests or areas of study 
which he might like to pursue now or later. It would be a time in 
which youth would feel free to follow or establish some interests 
without having each program carefully planned by the teacher. 


We have been guilty of crowding excessively the life of the 
child during these years of emerging adolescence. What the school 
doesn’t fill the home does—music and dancing lessons, scouting, 
church activities, movie going, homework, youth parties, or work 
for profit. The result of all this is that the day is entirely planned 
for the youth, leaving him frustrated in doing the things he plans 
himself and nervous in trying to satisfy all the demands placed 
upon him. I should like to emphasize the need for slowing down 




















1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 117 


the tempo and for curtailing the number of activities planned by 

adults for junior youth. 

Whatever need exists for participating in music, art, dancing, 
homework, games and other activities can be developed during 
free time for interest developing. For some, part of this free time 
can well be used for additional pursuit of basic skills not sufficiently 
practiced during the other part of the day. For all, part of this free 
time period should be used to walk and work in the community, 
actually participating in the work side of life in terms of productive 
activity. 

I do not mean to imply that there should be two parts of the 
school day—the morning for work and the afternoon for play. 
Neither do I suggest that there should be any sharp divisions be- 
tween these areas. Nor do I recommend that the pupil chooses the 
activities in one area and the teacher chooses those in the other. In 
the administration of this program alternate blocks of time could be 
given to the needs of these two major areas of emphasis, depending 
upon the needs of the individuals, upon the nature of their develop- 
ment, and upon the physical and human facilities of the school. In 
both areas—socializing and interest developing—the pupil will play 
a large part in helping to select experiences and activities. 

I have indicated that we need a better understanding of the conti- 
nuity of development, that we need codperation on the part of all teachers 
in planning the entire program of education, and that we need a changed 
program for junior youth. I should like to add one further suggestion. We 
need definite changes in the policy of administration and scheduling. 

The present junior high-school schedule is almost an exact duplicate 
of the one prevailing in the conventional senior high school. Both may be 
compared to the factory line in the production of automobiles. Like the 
automobile, the child passes down the line for three years. As he passes 
each teacher tacks on a piece, hoping that by the time the youth emerges 
he will be a well coordinated, running mechanism. But there are several 
fallacies in the process. 

In the first place we do not plan the entire process as carefully as 
does the designer of the car. We can never do so, for, and this is the 
second fallacy, the human organism is a different kind of thing from the 
physical unity of the car. Each added part of the car fits a pattern and 
builds a mechanical whole; if any part is omitted the car fails to that 
extent to function. With the human organism each added experience 
changes the entirety or the wholeness of the operation of the organism, 
and if any experience is omitted compensations for loss are developed. 
A third fallacy lies in the fact that we are not standardizing patterns of 
individuals; we are producing tailor-made products and we are not starting 




















118 Nationat AssociaTIoN oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


with the same plan or the same material. There are other fallacies but these 
will suffice to make the point that neither administration nor instruction 
can be routinized. Arbitrary division of either learning periods or time 
periods serve to disintegrate rather than to unify the individual and his 


experiences. 


Several schools are successfully experimenting with changed admin- 
istrative organizations. If you are interested in clock-like precision or uni- 
formity, you will not care to investigate them; but if you are desirious of 
making administration serve the process of instruction, you will want to 
examine them carefully. The plan of a school within a school, now being 
tried by such places as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and San Jose, California, are 
proving that ample time can be given for implementing the kind of 
changed program I have just suggested and still not bring the school into 
chaos. Educationally we are not very clever at thinking of new devices 
or patterns for administering our schools. 


As one observes the organization and programs of the secondary 
schools of America, both junior and senior high schools, he is struck by 
the fact that in general the best work going on to-day is with the so- 
called “slow learning” pupils. I think there is a good reason for that, but 
it is not very complimentary to school men. The reason is that these 
pupils blocked our school program. They couldn’t learn the traditional 
content we presented to the average and bright pupil and we didn’t dare 
fail them in large quantities. On the other hand we tended to adopt a no 
failure policy. The policy is fine and we have saved these slow learning 
pupils many years of frustration and grief. But we have failed to apply 
the same principle to the other pupils in our school. We have tried to 
failure policy. The policy is fine and we have saved these slow-learning- 
we have kept our traditional program for the rest of the youth. If the 
principle is sound for one group it is sound for all groups. We need, there- 
fore, to face squarely the challenge of the principle — organize our program 
upon the personal and social needs of all junior youth. Have we the 
courage and resourcefulness needed to do this? I should like to address 
this challenge to you junior high-school principals and I hope some day 
soon the answer may be in the affirmative. 


DISCUSSION 


The discussion was opened by Eli Foster, Principal of Central High 
School, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 


Dr. Leonard has left little doubt in our minds that he believes rather 
sweeping changes need to be made in the junior high schools. I wish to 
confine my brief remarks to just one phase of the many problems that 








th 
of 


Mi 


nic 








1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 119 


present themselves when any attempt is made to make important changes 
in the program. 

Let us assume that a certain junior high school has been given the go 
sign. It has been freed to experiment freely with its program. What is the 
first problem that arises? Readiness of the faculty to assume new attitudes, 
new points of view, new methods. 

The achievement of readiness takes time and opportunity for teachers 
to study the problems together. This time must be provided and the study 
done during the school day. After school meetings will make slight con- 
tribution to preparing teachers for a changed program. Even if the profes- 
sional schools did train teachers for a given school program the percentage 
of new teachers in any school, so trained, would be too small to have much 
effect. Therefore, the training must be done on the job and while working 
at the job. 

Some schools are attempting to solve this problem by setting up a con- 
ference hour or planning period during the school day. This sort of thing 
would be easy if we could add as many teachers as needed. But the problem 
must be solved without adding teachers, in most instances. 

Some schools have handled this by having pupils report to school at 
9:00 o'clock instead of 8:30. They used the hour from 8:00 to 9:00 for a 
conference or planning period. Others have reduced the amount of time 
devoted to the various traditional subjects. Others made large groups to 
be handled by some teachers at various hours. Some have used a combina- 
tion of all three plans. There are no doubt other plans in use not suggested 
here. 

The planning period is essential for two reasons: First, the teachers must 
find their way in the new program, and Second, it is necessary to keep the 
program going once it is under way. One absolute essential in such a 
program is that teachers must learn to work together codperatively. 

One of the encouraging things about such planning is the enthusiasm 
with which teachers approve it once it has been tried. 

The changes suggested by Dr. Leonard will not be accomplished by edict. 
They may be accomplished by faculties working codperatively together on 
the job at the job. This is our one gleam of light through the dark corridor 
of junior high school confusion. 

Principal C. E. Cormack of Jarret Junior High School, Springfield, 
Missouri, opened the informal discussion. 


THE SENIOR HIGH-SCHOOL PROGRAM 
The Senior High-School program was held in Assembly Hall 3, Mu- 


nicipal Auditorium. 
Principal Hugh H. Stewart of Davis High School, Mt. Vernon, New 























120 Nationat AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


York, opened the meeting with a short introductory statement; he then 
introduced Galen Jones, Principal of High School, Plainfield, New Jersey, 
who read his paper. 


MAKING GUIDANCE EFFECTIVE THROUGH 
TEACHER PARTICIPATION 


GaLen Jones 
Principal, the High School, Plainfield, New Jersey 


The word “guidance” is relatively new in education and is employed 
with such a variety of meanings that definition is necessary to its proper 
use. It is inappropriate, however, to our purposes to present at length 
various definitions concerning guidance. The point of view accepted in 
this discussion is that proposed by our “Committee on the Orientation of 
Secondary Education.” Function VII of the Committee’s Report states 
the purpose of guidance as follows: “To guide pupils, on the basis of 
exploratory and revealing courses and of other information gathered from 
personnel studies, as wisely as possible into wholesome and worth-while 
social relationships, maximum personality adjustment, and advanced study 
or vocations in which they are most likely to be successful and happy.” 
A similar definition by Dr. Arthur E. Traxler has recently been issued by 
the Educational Records Bureau: “Under ideal conditions, guidance en- 
ables each individual to understand his abilities and interests, to develop 
them as well as possible and to relate them to life goals, and finally to 
reach a state of complete and mature self-guidance as a desirable member 
of the social order.” These two statements provide the frame of reference 
for the exposition of practices which follows. 

Speaking before the New Orleans meeting of our Association in 1937, 
Dr. Charles H. Judd presented a convincing case for in-service education 
of secondary-school teachers. According to Dr. Judd the idea that a college 
can make a teacher is fundamentally wrong. He asserts that teachers are 
not prepared in colleges; they are merely started on their careers. A major 
opportunity and responsibility of principals, accordingly, is in-service edu- 
cation of teachers. Above and beyond personal supervision, Dr. Judd 
insists that the “scholarly atmosphere” of the school be achieved by a vig- 
orous intellectual attack made by the staff as a whole on the problems of 
the secondary school, particularly in the reorganization of the materials 
of instruction and in the distributive and the adjustment techniques in- 
volved in an effective guidance program. It is this interpretation of in- 


1Bulletin of the Department of Secondary-School Principals of the National Education Association, 
Functions of Secondary Education, Volume XXI, No. 64, January, 1937, p. 199. 

2Guidance in Public Secondary Schools—A Report of The Public School Demonstration Project in 
Educational Guidance. Edited by Arthur E. Traxler, Educational Records Bulletin No. 28, October, 


1939, Pp. xi. 

















1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 121 





service education which has motivated the attempts described in this paper. 


It is likely that no two schools will follow identical plans in achieving 
the objectives of guidance. This discussion describes the procedures em- 
ployed in the Plainfield High School during the last five years, with 
particular reference to teacher participation. An exposition is made of the 
precise activities of a single school not because these are conceived to be 
excellent, but because specific analyses of a particular school are likely to 
prove more effective than generalizations concerning desirable and possible 
means of teacher participation in all schools. 


Background Information 

A sense of the increasing need for definite provisions for guidance 
came in Plainfield with the very rapid additions to the school enrollment 
following 1930. Certain important and wise readjustments in the curricu- 
lar offerings were made at that time in order that the needs of the so-called 
non-academic groups might be met. Nevertheless, it was apparent that the 
lack of specific, delegated responsibility was resulting in’ an unsatisfactory 
distribution of pupils among the curricula and of courses of study pro- 
vided for them. For that reason, the Board of Education, in November, 
1934, approved a plan which looked toward a more adequately organized 
program of personalized guidance. These services were: first, the assign- 
ment of five teachers to half-time service as guidance counselors and a 
sixth teacher (giving two thirds of her time) to the direction of the pro 
gram of measurement and to the servicing of cumulative records; second, 
a commitment to a minimum, fall, testing program, using one scholastic 
aptitude test and one test of reading comprehension, as well as to a spring 
testing program covering the five academic areas for which comparable 
yearly tests prepared by the Codperative Test Service were available; and 
third, the installation of the cumulative record folder of the American 
Council on Education as made for the Kardex visible files by Remington 
Rand, Inc. 

These services have been expanded gradually during the last five 
years. At present the school has the following specialized services. First, 
there are the five counselors, each teaching but two classes and devoting 
the remainder of the day to counseling, with the sixth person devoting 
her full time to measurement and personnel records. Second, the measure- 
ment program includes, in addition to the measures initially adopted, 

“certain aptitude tests such as the Iowa Algebra Aptitude Test and the 
Iowa Geometry Aptitude Test in its spring program. Some use is also 
being made of personality measures and adjustment inventories, but we 
are still quite uncertain as to their values. Third, the installation of the 
cumulative record has been completed so that there is a record for every 

pupil in the membership of the school. Fourth, a visiting teacher, since 











122 Nationa AssoctaTIon oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


September, 1938, has contributed markedly to a better understanding of 
many pupils. In the fifth place, the counseling services were augmented 
in July, 1939, by the assignment to full-time service of a counselor in charge 
of placement work and follow up studies. Finally, the school is now using 
for the third year one of the test scoring machines recently produced by 
the International Business Machines Corporation. The scoring machine 
has tripled, at least, the effectiveness of the director of measurement and 
records, has relieved teachers of the scoring of standard and objective tests, 
and has increased remarkably the use of locally constructed tests for a 
variety of purposes. 


In-Service Education 
Weekly Meetings of Counselors 


When the Board of Education approved the appointment of five 
counselors it was with the understanding that they were to be chosen from 
the staff. After making a careful study of the training and personal quali- 
ties of the entire teaching personnel, the principal held several conferences 
with the department heads, known as the Principal’s Council, to secure 
their aid and participation in the selection of the counselors. By this means 
the recognized leaders and, in this instance, scholars of the school, became 
oriented to the complete plans of the guidance program, participated effec- 
tively in the formulation of the plans, as well as agreeing with almost 
unanimous enthusiasm upon the persons whose personal qualifications, 
interests, and skills bespoke their appointment as counselors. 


The counselors selected in 1934 had at the time, with two exceptions, 
no specialized training in guidance procedures and techniques. For reasons 
extraneous to this discussion, it was not feasible to appoint a Director of 
Guidance. The principal assumed, as a consequence, full responsibility 
for the in-service education of the counselors. Schedules were arranged so 
that all the counselors were free to meet with the principal during the first 
period on Wednesdays of each week. The personnel of these Wednesday 
morning meetings includes the five counselors, the director of measurement 
and records, the visiting teacher, the placement officer, and the principal. 
This practice has continued regularly since February, 1935, and these con- 
ferences are now regarded as indispensable by both the counselors and 
the administration. 


The subject matter employed in these weekly conferences has natu- 
rally been dictated by our felt needs in the specific situation and for the 
particular pupils for whom we were responsible. Beginning with such 
topics as the characteristics of our pupil population (mental, social, eco- 
nomic), the purposes of guidance in aiding pupils to achieve significant 
living, and needed curricular adjustments if all pupils are to learn, we 





1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TwWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 123 


have continued in these professionalized conferences our efforts to qualify 
ourselves for the tasks at hand. Some of the other topics which have 
been discussed are the use of measurement in classification, the use of 
standard measures in individual counseling, means of servicing the cumu- 
lative record, the use and interpretation of the cumulative record, the tech- 
nique of the interview, human relationships requisite to individual coun- 
seling, means of appraising student characteristics and needs, the meaning 
of personality development in guidance, orientation of students in our 
high school, guidance needed for occupational adjustment, and occupa- 
tional placement and follow up. These citations are, of course, merely rep- 
resentative of the subjects to which our weekly conferences have been 
directed, since the limitations of time and space prevent the inclusion of 
detailed descriptions. 

Since 1934 we have maintained a guidance library which has made 
possible immediate and ready reference to the best materials which research 
and guidance specialists have contributed to the general problem. The 
titles in this library are similar to the selected bibliographies published 
from time to time in Occupations—The Vocational Guidance Magazine.” 


Staff Meetings 

No one who has attempted the inauguration and operation of an 
effective guidance program will disparage the necessity for specialized 
guidance services. Experience teaches us, however, that no program of 
guidance functions properly which is delegated solely to specialists, and 
that specialists are valuable to the extent that their services and contribu- 
tions are understood and used by the entire teaching staff. For that reason 
a carefully planned and continuous program for the education of every 
member of the teaching staff in the philosophy and methodology of indi- 
vidualized education is necessary. One important and indispensable means 
to this end is the professionalized, regularly scheduled staff meetings which 
are devoted to a study of the school’s problems and which give evidence 
of what Dr. Judd so aptly terms “scholarly atmosphere.” 

For the last five and one-half years the staff of the Plainfield High 
School has met monthly for a seventy-five-minute session to study its 
problems. Many of the subjects under consideration have had to do with 
making guidance function effectively in our school. Among the subjects 
dealing with guidance the following are representative: The Public School 
Demonstration Project in Educational Guidance (in which our school was 
a participant); the function of the teacher in guidance; specialized guid- 
ance services—the need for them, and how we want them to function; 
the guidance implications of the reports of the Committee on the Orienta- 


*Peel, M. Dorothy and Alexander, Carter ‘‘Bibliography.'’ Occupations 14:968-75, June 1936. 
Hoppock, Robert and Paven, Ann. “Occupational Books—a Five-Foot Shelf."" Occupation 


15:250-3, December 1936. 








124 Nationa AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


tion of Secondary Education entitled “Issues of Secondary Education” and 
“Functions of Secondary Education”; the home-room teacher and guidance; 
the cumulative record and the study of the individual pupil; the values and 
limitations of standardized tests—both of aptitude and achievement; the 
meaning of a test score; and opportunities in the regular courses of study 
for occupational guidance. 

For the most part these programs have been presented by members 
of the staff. A committee of five, whose membership varies somewhat 
from year to year, is responsible with the principal for planning the pro- 
grams. At these meetings, three teachers are responsible for an adequate 
presentation of the problem under consideration; it is customary, however, 
to reserve at least thirty minutes of the allotted time for full staff discussion. 
Sometimes a problem has been brought before the teaching group by 
means of a panel discussion in which from five to seven teachers partici- 
pate. Occasionally an outside expert has been invited to lecture and to be 
questioned by the group. The principal generalization which the over- 
whelming majority of the staff would join in making is that these general 
staff conferences have become a most significant source of scholarly en- 
deavor, one which seems indispensable to our continued alertness and pro- 


fessional growth. 


Other Means of Teacher Participation 
Previous mention has been made of the fact that the high school was 
privileged to participate as one of seven schools in the Public School Dem- 
onstration Project in Educational Guidance.‘ Three projects sponsored by 
the Educational Records Bureau as phases of the study justified themselves 
primarily as means of teacher education in guidance procedures. 


Use Made of Cumulative Records 


The first of these projects was a study carried on for ten weeks in an 
attempt to determine the extent to which teachers, counselors, and admin- 
istrators used the rather comprehensive cumulative record which was 
patterned after the American Council on Education Cumulative Record 
Folder. This study was made during October, November, and early De- 
cember, 1938. By this time the installation of the records was complete for 
the entire pupil personnel and it was time, therefore, to determine “To 
what extent does the faculty now depend upon the records?” as well as to 
attempt an appraisal of the effectiveness of the previous program of teacher 
education in the use of such records. 

The findings of this study are extensively reported in Educational 
Record Bulletin No. 28°; consequently, a detailed analysis is not made in 


“See Guidance in Public Secondary Schools—A Report of the Public School Demonstration Project 
in Educational Guidance, edited by Arthur E. Traxler. Educational Records Bulletin No. 28, October 


1939, Educational Records Bureau, 437 West soth St., New York, N. Y. 
50p. cit. pp. 79-85. 





1940] Proceepincs oF TwENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 125 


this report. Briefly, one may say that forty-five per cent of the staff re- 
corded the use which they made of the records during the designated 
period; that teachers of academic and commercial subjects made more fre- 
quent use of the records than did teachers of other subjects; that, with the 
exception of teachers’ marks, the newer information, such as results of apti- 
tude and achievement tests, interests, vocational choice and educational 
plans, was sought with greatest frequency. Subsequent, though more 
casual observation, seems to support our conviction that this study of the 
use made of records was an important means of teacher education in guid- 


ance techniques. 
Case Studies 


The second project which called for extensive participation of teachers 
was that of the making and reporting of case studies. During the school 
year 1937-1938 each teacher, after several staff conferences, was given the 
opportunity of preparing a case study. As Dr. Traxler points out: “The 
preparation of case studies is one of the most important ways of training 
the staff for personnel work, for case studies bring guidance down from 
the clouds and make it concrete. 

A school which maintains a cumulative record system has at least the 
basic outline for a continuous case history for each of its pupils. The first 
task of one making a case study is to organize the case history data, to 
supplement these data with information obtained from interviews and 
other sources, to analyze and interpret all the facts, and to bring the infor- 
mation to bear upon the pupil’s problems in such a way that a diagnosis 
may be made and a program of treatment planned.” 

Approximately three fourths of our eighty-nine teachers made case 
studies during the year. In February, 1938, at a time when most of the 
teachers were getting nicely started on their individual case studies, the 
general staff meeting was given to the demonstration of a case history 
conference. It required about forty-five minutes for the teacher in charge 
to confer with the eight members of the staff who knew best the pupil 
under consideration. Then Dr. Anna Rose Hawkes, director of the Public 
School Demonstration Project in Educational Guidance and Dr. Arthur E. 
Traxler of the Educational Records Bureau appraised the techniques em- 
ployed in the case history conferences and made a number of suggestions 
which proved of great value when case history conferences were subse- 
quently held by different staff members as a procedure in the development 
of their own case studies. The value of this procedure for in-service edu- 
cation is well summarized by Dr. Ruth Strang when she says: “Judged 
only by its value to the individual pupil studied, the case history conference 
is an extravagant procedure. Judged from the standpoint of its value in 
the in-service education of teachers, its cost is amply justified. In such 


®Educational Records Bulletin, No. 28, Op. cit. p. xxi. 




















conferences teachers become acquainted with methods which specialists 


and teachers skilled in guidance use to approach problems of child develop- 
ment, the kind of information they think significant in particular cases, 
the meaning and interpretation they give to these facts, the summary and 
implications they draw, and the recommendations they make. Such an 


experience is an extremely important way to increase teachers’ interest in 
997 


and understanding of pupils. 


Anecdotal Reports 

The third project, an experiment with the anecdotal method, was 
presented to the faculty at the monthly meeting in January, 1939, by Dr. 
Anna Rose Hawkes. Copies of Traxler’s bulletin on “The Nature and 
Use of Anecdotal Records’ were distributed to all teachers, and the few 
additional references with which the faculty were somewhat familiar, were 
made available for reference.” Without making a specific requirement, 
which may have been a tactical error, members of the staff were urged 
to contribute anecdotes about pupils during the ensuing two months. The 
results of this study are reported elsewhere” and only a few generalizations 
are required in this connection. In the absence of reliable personality tests 
the faculty soon recognized the importance of the anecdotal record as a 
means of obtaining objective information about pupils. It became clear 
also that the anecdotal record plan required the interest and effort of all 
of the faculty if it were to be successful. The chief value of this phase of 
our study was the training value. It taught us that the recording of a 
behavior incident in a concise, objective statement without interpretation is 
an art and a skill which will require much practice. We are confident, 
however, that the effort was fruitful as an aid to teacher insight into 


personnel methods. 


The Home-Room Program 

Wide practice attests the necessity of the home-room plan of organi- 
zation in large schools for administrative purposes. An extensive literature 
has described the possibilities of the home room as a crucial unit in pupil 
orientation and guidance. Practice in many schools, nevertheless, has caused 
despair of the home room as a functioning unit in the guidance program, 
even to the point that many schools have relieved the home room of virtu- 
ally all guidance functions and admittedly maintain it as a sheer adminis- 
trative device. Our school was almost of this state of mind, but decided 


Strang, Ruth. “The Teacher's Contribution to the Guidance of Children."’ Teachers College Rec- 


ord. Vol. 40, No. 1, October, 1938, pp. 22-23. ; 
®Traxler, Arthur E. The Nature and Use of Anecdotal Records, Educational Records Supplementary 


Bulletin D. New York: Educational Records Bureau, January 1939. 
°Wood, Ben D. ‘The Major Strategy of Guidance,"’ The Educational Record XV1, October, 1934, 
419-44. 
Randall, J. A. ‘‘The Anecdotal Behavior Journal," Progressive Education, XIII, Jan. 1936. 21-26. 
See Fducational Records Bulletin No. 28, op. cit., pp. 189-202. 





126 Nationat AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats_ [February 






















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1940] ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 127 


that the possible service of the home room in guidance was too important 
to discard without another attempt based upon broad teacher participation. 
In the spring of 1939, therefore, two staff meetings were devoted to the 
place of the home room in a guidance program. This resulted in the ap- 
pointment of a committee of sixteen teachers, headed by an interested and 
skilled counselor, and charged with the responsibility of developing sug- 
gestive materials for each grade level for use at the weekly period set aside 
for home-room guidance. This committee has revitalized interest among 
the majority of home-room advisers—at least temporarily. A library of 
materials dealing with the home room has been assembled, a four-year 
program has been outlined, and special bulletins have been prepared. The 
sense of responsibility for knowing the home-room membership as indi- 
viduals seems to be on its way. It is too soon to make a definite generaliza- 
tion, but the indications are that competent teachers, charged with a re- 
sponsibility which they accept because of the worthy purposes involved, 
will meet the needs of any situation. 


Summary and Conclusion 


As Dr. Ben D. Wood” points out, an effective guidance program is 
dependent upon at least four factors. First of all, there is a close relation- 
ship between the interest and perseverance of the higher administrative 
officers in the school and the development of an adequate guidance pro- 
gram. Secondly, continuing progress in the direction of individualized 
education depends upon the maintenance in conveniently usable form of 
cumulative records of comparable test measures and of data on the personal 
development, self-discipline, and social adjustment of individual pupils. 
A third conviction, if appropriate educational programs are to be realized, 
is that the traditional academic curriculum is too narrow to care for the 
educational needs of all the pupils now in the secondary school. Finally, 
it seems clear that the success of schools with guidance is closely propor- 
tional to the effectiveness of the teacher re-education program. 


The in-service education relative to guidance procedures in one schocl 
embodied in this presentation includes: first, a description of the weekly 
conferences of guidance counselors; second, the use of the general staff 
meeting as an indispensable means of orientating the entire group of class- 
room teachers to their opportunities and responsibilities in an effective 
guidance program; third, a report of the extent to which a faculty depends 
upon cumulative records in dealing with the individual pupil; fourth, an 
exposition of teacher participation in the writing of case studies and in 
case history conferences as a means of teacher education; fifth, an experi- 
ment with the use of the anecdotal record; and sixth, an attempt to revital- 


MEducational Record Bulletin No. 28, op. cit., pp. viii and ix. 

















128 Nationa AssoctaTION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


ize a home-room orientation program through broad teacher participation 
and responsibility. 

It has been said that “the zest of life is at the growing edge.” A real 
school is staffed by teachers whose own curiosity is not sated, who realize 
the necessity for continuous study of the pupil, the materials, and the 
process. In such a school there will always be that zeal for finding better 
ways of directing the growth of youth in the light of individual needs, 
which for want of a better term we call in-service education. 


The second speaker was C. L. Cushman, Coérdinator of the Com- 
mission on Teacher Education of the American Council on Education, 
Washington, D. C., who read his paper. 


THE PRINCIPAL’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTINUING 
GROWTH OF A SCHOOL’S PROFESSIONAL PERSONNEL 


C. L. CusHMAN 


The major part of this paper deals with the need for continuing growth 
on the part of teachers and principals and ways of promoting such growth. 


Lest the subject of the paper seem to be ignored, I shall begin by saying 
that the principal of a school has particular responsibility for (1) under- 
standing the need for a continuing education of the school’s professional per- 
sonnel, (2) understanding the lines along which such education should 
proceed, the objectives if you please, if it is to contribute to the program 
of the school, (3) understanding the ways in which such education can be 
promoted, and (4) sharing these understandings with his faculty and, in 
codperation with the members of that group, seeing that a comprehensive 
plan for continuing growth is maintained. ; 
The balance of this paper will be devoted to an elaboration of the first 
three of those four points—that is (1) to a consideration of the need for 
in-service education (a more simple statement of the end we are after), 
(2) to a consideration of the objectives of in-service education, and (3) to an 
examination of ways of promoting or carrying on such education. 


THE NEED FOR IN-SERVICE EDUCATION 


There are at least three major reasons for our being greatly concerned 
about in-service education. These are stated here in what is deemed to be 
an ascending order of importance. 

1. On the average we stay with this job of teaching about twice as long 
as did the teachers of fifteen or twenty years ago. Furthermore, school 
populations are becoming stable or are declining. The net result is that the 





















ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTy-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 129 





1940] 


number of new teachers who come into our schools each year has declined 

and is continuing to decline. Now new teachers have always served the 
extremely useful purpose of bringing into our schools an unusual number 
of new ideas. Sometimes of course these have been naive and impractical. 
Very often, however, they have been intelligent and greatly needed. Often 
their newness enabled them to point out to us faults in our programs that 
we had accepted or overlooked because of our routinish ways. If this source 
of new ideas is to be in part cut off, as it already has been, it behooves all 
of the rest of us to plan our lives in such ways that we will, to a much 
greater degree than in the past, continue to pump new ideas into the pro- 
grams of our schools. 

2. There is coming into the practice of our schools a new concept of 
the relation of learning and living—a concept that makes the two insep- 
arable. In school practice at its best pupils learn as they live and live as they 
learn. If this principle of the inseparability of living and learning is sound 
for pupils it must be equally sound for teachers—indeed it would seem 
reasonable to believe that no school could use this principle effectively in 
its general program for pupils unless it was also operative for teachers— 
unless teaching and learning were also conducted as inseparable activities. 

3. Our schools have a job of almost overwhelming proportions to per- 
form. Since the earliest days of our American government the American 
people have had dinned in their ears the assertion that the realization of 
American Dream is to a very large degree dependent upon an effective 
program of public education. Quantitatively that program of public educa- 
tion has been pretty well realized. Qualitatively the program leaves a very 
great deal to be desired. Great numbers of American people are saying 
that the time has come for us as a nation to move along a little more 
rapidly toward the realization of the American Dream. In a very real 
sense this is a time of testing for the American schools. They must improve 
the quality of their programs. Pupils, parents, and citizens everywhere 
must see in the schools the means for promoting their most fundamental 
purposes—means for the realization of that dream, if you please. Other- 
wise schools must expect to lose the confidence of their patrons. 

Any one of these three reasons for in-service has sufficient implications to 
make possible indefinite expansion. Many others could also be given. The 
nature of the subject seems, however, to call for moving on to other matters. 


THE OBJECTIVES OF IN-SERVICE EDUCATION 


The objectives of the in-service program of education for the teachers 
of any school should stem from the objectives of that school. That is, from 
the objectives for the learning of the student. If a school has as one of its 
major objectives the imparting to pupils of knowledge of the past, it would 
be proper for that school to ask, “What does a teacher need to know and 


- 













130 Narionat AssociaTION OF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


be able to do if he is to contribute effectively to the achievement of that 
objective?” The answer to that question would then become the objective 
of the in-service program of professional education within that school. 


There has recently come to my attention what I consider to be an unus- 
ually effective analysis of the things that teachers need to know and to be 
able to do in schools designed to meet the needs of youth in a democracy. 
I refer to the statement on Organizing the Program of Professional Educa- 
tion by President John J. DeBoer of Chicago Teachers College and included 
as one of the chapters in the volume entitled Teachers for Democracy. This 
volume constitutes the fourth yearbook of the John Dewey Society. 


These objectives are restated here, not as the objectives which should be 
adopted by all schools, but as an example of a well thought out statement 
of objectives for teacher education in such schools as Dr. DeBoer believes in. 


According to Dr. DeBoer, the objectives of teacher education for schools 
that seek to serve the ends of a democratic society should be to promote 
growth in (1) the understanding of children, (2) the understanding of the 
community and its effects upon the child, (3) the ability to set up objectives 
for teaching by studying pupils’ present needs from the standpoint of the 
requirements of life in a democratic society, (4) the ability to organize 
instruction with a view to the achievement of well-defined objectives, and 
to share with pupils the responsibility of planning the work of the school, 
(5) the ability to evaluate pupil growth in terms of these objectives, (6) the 
ability to participate intelligently in curriculum planning, (7) the ability 
to participate intelligently in school management, and (8) the understand- 
ing of the broader problems of the profession of education and of the 
relation of school and society. 


I cite these as a well thought out statement of objectives for teacher 
education—but in no sense as a final or perfect statement. 


WAYS OF PROMOTING IN-SERVICE EDUCATION 


For a very long time schools have had ways of promoting in-servic. 
education. Teachers’ meetings, institutes, study bulletins, extension courses, 
summer school attendance, travel, community activity, participation in cur- 
riculum planning—all of these and many other school activities have had 
some bearing upon the continued growth of the teachers of our schools. 
As a rule, however, these have not been thought through carefully with 
reference to their contributions to any particular pattern of objectives such 
as I have just cited. Often the contribution to teacher growth has been 
quite incidental to the achievement of some rather immediate end of a 
school’s program. In many cases these activities have been conducted in 
such ways as to thwart the sort of growth for which we should have been 
most concerned. For example, such programs have all too often been 





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1940] ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 131 


arbitrarily imposed in the interest of some rather immediate concern, with 
the result that teachers have failed to develop in their ability to share in 
planning the total program of the school—a form of growth most essential 
to the schools of a democracy. 

Certainly the most important responsibility of any principal for the 
in-service education program of a school is right at this point—that is, at 
the point of organizing his faculty for a critical examination of those activi- 
ties which promote or which should promote in-service education of a type 
consistent with the objectives of the school concerned. 

It would be quite proper to direct such an examination to the sort of 
activities I enumerated a little bit ago—teachers’ meetings, summer school 
attendance, and the like. That is, a school faculty might very properly, and 
very properly, be assigned the task of examining such activities to determine 
whether they are being conducted in such ways as to promote the profes- 
sional growth of its members. 

Another approach would be to examine the things which promote or 
discourage growth among persons in particular groups of the school’s 
personnel—the beginning group of teachers, the mature group of teachers, 
the principal, the teachers of the social studies, teachers with responsibilities 
for guidance, and the like. This approach too has its merits. 


Still a third approach—one that I myself find particularly helpful—is to 
ask, are the different types of associational relationships within this school 
such as to promote the sort of in-service education that is required by the 
nature of the program of the school concerned. 


There are at least six types of associational relationships which might 
very properly be included in such an examination. These are as follows: 


1. The associational relationships of teachers and pupils. 

2. The associational relationships of teachers and teachers. 

3. The associational relationships of (classroom) teachers and adminis- 
trators,—principals, and supervisors. 

4. The associational relationships of teachers and experts (psychiatrists, 
physicians, social workers, leading citizens, college authorities, artists, 
engineers, and the like.) 

5. The associational relationships of teachers and parents. 

6. The associational relationships of teachers with the larger community 
and with social life in general. 

It seems to me that to a very considerable degree it is through these 
relationships that the professional personnel of a school is caused to grow 
and develop. These relationships can be organized and carried on in such 
ways as to promote growth toward the achievement of such objectives as 
were cited above. Or they can, and I fear often are, organized in such 
ways as to stand in the way of this end. 








132 Nationar Association oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


To illustrate consider the matter of the relationships between teachers 
and pupils. These relationships undoubtedly constitute our most important 
single means for helping teachers to grow in their understanding of our 
youth. All too often, however, they actually contribute little or nothing to 
such growth. Why is this at times true? It is true because the organization 
of the school program is such as stand in the way of teachers becoming 
truly acquainted with their students. It may be that the period of time 
that a given teacher spends with a particular group of pupils is too brief 
to permit an intimate acquaintance. It may be that the requirements of the 
course of study that the teacher is following are so rigid as to divert almost 
completely the attention of the teacher from the real concerns of his stu- 
dents. It may be that his own practices as a teacher have become so rigid 
and ever changing as to make him and his pupils forever strangers. It may 
be that his own personal life is so foreign to the life of the community in 
which his pupils live that he and they have little in common. 


How can all of this be changed? By placing teachers and pupils in a 
relationship that will cause teachers to become concerned about the boys 
and girls of their classes. By seeing that teachers know the conditions under 
which their pupils live, the things they do, the things they want to do, the 
troubles they have, their insecurities. And then by seeing that the nature of 
the school program is such as to make it easy and natural—indeed impera- 
tive—that teachers should build their work so as to meet the needs of 
those pupils. 

It is important to note in all of this that there is no conflict between 
organizing the school program so as to promote at one and the same time 
pupil and teacher growth. 


Time does not permit examination of each of the other types of rela- 
tionships enumerated. I should therefore like to turn to the third type men- 
tioned—relationships between classroom teachers and administrative officers. 
No other type of relationship has more to do with the determination of the 
extent to which there will be continued growth on the part of both teachers 
and administrators. Administration is more than a way of getting things 
done. Good administration is a way of getting things done so that both the 
teacher and administrator will themselves profit therefrom. 


A principal does well to ask of himself such questions as these: 

1. Are the divisions with regard to the operation of this school being 
made in such a way as to cause those persons concerned to grow in their 
insights with regard to the purposes and plans of the school? 

2. Are the decisions being made in such a way as to place a premium 
on creative thinking on ‘the part of teachers? 

3. Are the decisions being made in such a way as to give me, as prin- 
cipal, the assistance of my associates? That is, to cause me to grow? 





1940| ProcEeDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 133 


And since none of us can ever truly know himself, a principal does 
exceedingly well to ask the teachers of the school to consider these ques- 
tions with him. 

Time will perhaps permit brief reference to two of the other types of 
relationships to which I have referred. Let us consider what I have referred 
to as relations with experts and then finally relations with parents. 


By experts I refer to authorities in a great many different fields of knowl- 
edge who have a contribution to make to the teacher’s undertanding of how 
to meet the needs of particular pupils or of particular types of school situa- 
tions. The major source of such contacts is of course the institutions of 
higher education. If such contacts are to contribute most effectively to 
teacher growth they must be planned and carried on in such ways as to 
bear directly upon the problems of particular teachers working in particular 
schools. At present the relations between teachers on the one hand and 
college professors on the other are all too often of such a nature that what 
the latter says in formal courses touches only occasionally on the problems 
of the former. 


Now for a final word with regard to the relations of teachers and parents. 
Such relations should make a distinct contribution to the growth of teachers 
—particularly to their understanding of the needs of particular pupils. All 
too often, however, the nature of these relations is such as to cut teachers 
off from this contribution—that is, all too often such relations are conducted 
on a one way basis—they are for the purpose of informing the parent of 
what the teacher and school are trying to do for the child. Too often they 
make no provision for the teacher to gain new insights into the needs of 
the pupil through information volunteered by the parent. 


Let me attempt to draw together what I have been trying to say. It is a 
well accepted principle of school administration that the principal should 
exercise leadership in the formulation of the school’s program of learning 
or growth for the students. All too often such programs have been organized 
without parallel consideration of the sort of program that the school must 
provide for the growth of teachers and the principal himself, if that program 
is to be a success. The sort of school programs we are seeking to develop 
today—certainly the sort of school programs we should be developing— 
will not permit this sort of neglect. Instead, it becomes imperative that 
the principal should exercise leadership in seeing that the curriculum of 
the school is implemented by a coérdinated program to promote profes- 
sional growth. That the two programs should be co6rdinated—that is, that 
the objectives of the teacher education program should be derived from 
the pupil curriculum is absolutely essential. The two must be developed 
together. The development of the second should not be permitted to cause 
any halt in the development of the first. Finally, both of these tasks are so 








134 Nationa AssoctaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats_ [February 


demanding as to require the fullest codperation of the principal and his 


full staff of teachers. 
Then followed discussion led by Noble Hendrix, Principal of Wood- 


lawn High School, Birmingham, Alabama. 


THE JUNIOR-COLLEGE PROGRAM 


This session was held in Committee Room 3-A, Municipal Audito- 


rium. 
The program was in charge of Principal John E. Wellwood of Central 


High School, Flint, Michigan. He introduced B. Lamar Johnson, Dean 
of Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri, who read his paper. 


THE IMPLICATIONS OF DEMOCRACY 
FOR THE JUNIOR COLLEGE 


B. LaMar JOHNSON 


Stephens College 


In introducing and discussing the subject assigned to us, we might take 
a cue suggested by Jim, a college student who last fall took part in a panel 


discussion of “Democracy in Our Schools.” The discussion, which was 
broadcast over a national hookup, was carried on by a panel of high school 
and college students. 

The day following the broadcast a friend who asked Jim about the panel 
was rewarded with this sharp reply, “It was lousy.” 

“What was the matter?” inquired his friend. 

“Well, I'll tell you,” commented Jim. “Those high-school youngsters had 
it all over us college students. The subject was ‘Democracy in Our Schools,’ 
and they really had something to talk about. In my college we students don’t 
know about the college, its administration, and its operation, let alone have 
anything to say about how things might be done. In our classes we do what 
we're told—and for the most part that is attend lectures, take notes, do a 
minimum of studying, and take a few examinations.” 


Jim’s case is not exceptional. Our universities, our colleges, and our junior 
colleges are all too often subjecting students to educational experiences in 
the planning of which they have little or no voice and in the carrying out of 
which they are passive partners. 


Undoubtedly a consideration this afternoon of student participation in 
classroom activities and in student government would be appropriate to 
the subject, “The Implications of Democracy for the Junior College.” If we 
wish to build on democratic principles we must not merely teach about 





1940] ProckEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 135 


democracy; we must give students opportunity to practice democracy in the 


school. 

Despite the importance of this approach to our subject, the program com- 
mittee of the Association has suggested a second though related approach, 
namely, an approach which raises these questions: 

Does the junior college have a responsibility to the large body of 
high-school graduates who are not planning to continue to a bac- 
calaureate degree? 

If so, what is this responsibility? Is the junior college meeting 
this problem? 

How best can the junior college meet its responsibility ? 

All members of the panel will, I am confident, agree that society has a 
responsibility for the student who is interested in further education but 
not in a bachelor’s degree. Likewise, I believe that we all should agree that 
up to the present society has not actually met the problem. 

At the present time there are approximately four million youth between 
the ages of sixteen and twenty-four who are both out of school and out of 
work. Sixty-seven per cent of the youth of high-school age are in school; 
only twelve per cent of college-age attend school. Actually what society 
says to millions of American youth is simply this: “No, we're sorry, but we 
don’t have work for you. You aren’t trained for this work—and then, too, 
we need to give jobs to men with family responsibilities.” Society then 
further adds: “No, we're sorry, but we don’t have more schooling for you 
unless you are interested in these courses which prepare you for advanced 
work toward a degree.” 

It is essentially these attitudes of a bungling society which are leading 
to our youth problem “The Dilemma of Youth, the Tragedy of Youth.” 

Now, just how does the junior college fit into this situation? We must 
agree that the junior college has potential significance in meeting the youth 
problem. Actually, though, up to the present the junior college has con- 
tributed surprisingly little to the solution of the problem of our nation’s 


youth. 

To-morrow the American Association of Junior Colleges opens its annual 
convention in my home city. At the meetings, and in the hotel lobbies, we 
shall hear leaders in the junior-college movement, prominent educators and 
important laymen, express amazement at the phenomenal growth and de- 
yelopment of the junior college. We shall talk with pride of our 575 junior 
colleges enrolling almost two hundred thousand students. 

At first thought, increasing junior-college enrollments may appear to be 
startling. However, further consideration leads to amazement—not that 
junior colleges enroll as many as two hundred thousand students but that 
junior colleges do not enroll many times that number. With a history that 

















136 Nationa AssoctaTion or SeconpARY-ScHooL Principats [| Febrmary 


extends over four decades, with four millions of youth out of school and out 
of work, why do we to-day have less than two hundred thousand students 
attending junior colleges? The answer to this question is not difficult to 
find. It lies largely in the type of curriculum found in the junior colleges 
of the nation. 

Several months ago I visited a junior college in a small mid-western city. 
I found that the local high school each year has approximately three hun- 
dred graduates, and yet I found a junior college with a total enrollment of 
less than one hundred. I was interested in asking what the more than 
five hundred other high-school graduates of the preceding two years were 
doing. Few of them had gone to college; few had employment; most of 
them, the junior-college dean informed me, were just at home or around 
town—facing the dilemma of youth, demonstrating the tragedy of youth 
to-day. 

I inquired into the curriculum of the junior college and found that 
courses offered by the junior college were limited to college preparatory 
courses recognized by the state university: English composition, mathe- 
matics, science, history, a foreign language, and so forth. I asked whether 
any course in marriage and the family were offered. The answer was, “No, 
the university wouldn’t accredit it.” 

I asked whether work were provided in the field of consumers problems. 
Again I received the same negative reply and explanation. I asked about 
health courses and vocational courses. Again, the same reply and the same 
explanation. 

It is easy to understand why less than one sixth of the high-school gradu- 
ates of this community enroll in the junior college. The curriculum simply 
does not meet their needs. 

The situation I have described is all too typical. In a study of 153 junior 
colleges in all sections of the country, Taylor found that approximately 
four fifths of the students are enrolled in college preparatory curricula.’ 
But the situation is even worse than these figures would suggest—not only 
does the college preparatory aim dominate the junior-college curriculum, 
not only does this dominant aim exclude from junior colleges millions of 
youth who need not college preparation but life preparation, but college 
preparation even fails to serve the needs of the few who enter junior col- 
lege. In his study of several thousand California students who planned to 
continue their education after graduating from junior college, Eells found 
that only twenty-eight per cent actually enter the college of their choice’ 
In his Mississippi study Walker learned that, of 1305 students entering 
junior colleges, only 266 (20 per cent) actually go on to a senior college or 
university. ° 

"Pager, Actin Gy ‘Oxsvivaler Resesch te Urgeatty ‘Westedi” faler College ‘fausedl’ saniéihi 
193 


3. 
"Kells, W. C. ‘Intentions of Junior-College Students."’ Junior College Journal 7:3-10. 1936 
Walker, Kirby P. ‘‘The Need for Terminal Courses." Junior College Journal 8:179-180. 1938 









tlo 


This 


Novi 

















1940] ProckEeDINGs OF TwENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 137 


“The typical junior college appears to provide a course of study that is 
dominantly college preparatory, and the typical student pursues such a 
course. Curiously enough, however, when this student leaves the junior col- 
lege, he does not continue in an institution of higher learning. His schooling 
is complete. In other words, the junior college presents the paradoxical situ- 
ation of devoting its major energies to attaining an objective needed by 
no more than one fourth or one fifth of its students. This condition has un- 
doubtedly excluded from the junior college hundreds of thousands of youth 
who are not interested in preparing for college entrance, but who would be 
interested in a curriculum planned to aid them in meeting pressing prob- 


” 4 


lems of Ife. 


The question now comes to us: What causes this inadequate recognition 
of the needs of youth in the junior college curriculum? To this query I 
should make the following answers. 


One reason for the continuing dominance of the college-preparatory 
course in the junior college is domination of the junior college by the uni- 
versity. “It is a common practice for universities to refuse transfer credit 
for courses that do not parallel those they offer FRESHMEN AND 
SOPHOMORES. This situation places the junior-college administrator in 
a dilemma: a good majority of his students refuse to take courses that the 
state university will not accredit, and the university (since it offers no simi- 
lar courses) refuses to allow credit for new-type courses organized specifi- 
cally in terms of student life needs. The oblivious resolution of this 
dilemma is to offer traditional courses that students will take and that the 
university will accept for the few who continue their education.” 


A second reason sométimes given for the failure of junior colleges to offer 
courses adapted to the needs of youth is the inadequate financial support of 
the junior college. Those who urge this viewpoint call attention to the ad- 
ditional costs of certain significant terminal courses, particularly in the voca- 
tional fields. ° 

Third, it is easier for the junior-college dean and his staff to provide a 
course of study which apes that of the first two years of the usual arts 
college than to build new courses planned solely in terms of student needs. 
Traditional courses can be modelled after those which most teachers have 
taken in college. New courses, on the other hand, require a study of student 
needs, the development of new materials and methods which meet those 

‘needs. Despite the fact that we talk a great deal about university domination 
and lack of funds, I am convinced that this third factor of doing the tradi- 
tional because it is the easy thing to do is of basic importance. 


‘Johnson, B. Lamar ‘‘The Junior College."’ In National Society for the Study of Education, 
Thirty-Eighth Yearbook. Part Il. General Education in the American College, p. 115. 
®]bid., p. 116. 


*Colvert, C. C. ‘*The Junior College and Student Needs." Junior College Journal 10:123-124. 
November 1939. See p. 123. 











138 Nationat Association oF Seconpary-ScHooL Principats [February 


There is a fourth reason—and in my opinion a very undemocratic one— 
for the failure of junior colleges to emphasize the meeting of life needs. It 
is this: to plan courses in such terms is simply not respectable. The junior 
college which stresses, not preparation for advanced academic or professional 
work but training and experience in healthful living, intelligent citizenship, 
and vocational preparation is looked down upon, not merely by scholars 
but by large numbers of our population. 


“Good enough,” says the academician. “Let the junior college offer that 
sort of work for students who aren’t ‘good enough’ to go to college.” 


Says the youth, with a sense of disappointment, “Yes, if I can’t be a 
doctor or a teacher, a lawyer or an engineer, I suppose it will be all right 
to take a general education course and to prepare for some trade.” 


All too often the educator and the youth interested in life preparation 
are compelled to stand up to a barrage of contemptuous criticism. 

It is all every well to berate society and to belittle the contribution of the 
junior college to the pressing problems of American youth. But what do we 
as educators have to offer of a constructive nature? What do we propose 
to do about the situation? In brief, what are the implications—right now— 


of democracy for the junior college? 


The program which I should like to suggest is not new—it has been often 
proposed; it has, however, seldom been tried. 


My first suggestion is this: determine the needs of youth. During the past 
two decades, and particularly during the last five years, we have had a va- 
riety of studies of youth and adults, their problems, their needs: the Univer- 
sity of Minnesota study, Bell’s study in Maryland, Charters’ study at Steph- 
ens College, the New York Regents Inquiry. These investigations and others 
which we might mention are suggesting the direction of the road we need 
to follow in aiding youth meet their problems. We might comment on a 
number of the problems and areas in which these studies indicate work 
needs to be done: the vocational area, the health area, the social or citizen- 
ship area, and so forth. We might comment on the striking point that the 
importance of terminal courses, life preparation courses, rather than the 
college preparation courses, are repeatedly demonstrated. 


In determining the needs of youth in a given community, available studies 
must be considered. Further investigation of the peculiar problems and 
opportunities of youth to be served are, however, essential if the program 
of a junior college is to function effectively in a particular community. 

The second step, after determining the needs of youth, is to provide an 
educational program designed to meet the needs of the youth of the com- 
munity—not merely the needs of the few who go to college. Certainly in 
such a program we shall be more concerned with the problem of vocational 





1940} ProckEDINGs OF TwENTy-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 139 


plans and disillusionment than with the conjugation of Latin verbs, more 
interested in problems of managing money and better buymanship than in 
the history of the tariff; more interested in improving the reading and radio 
listening habits of students than of giving them a meeting of the literature 
of antiquity. 

Though I may have given a pessimistic picture this afternoon, I wish to 
mention two developments which make me hopeful for the future. 


The first of these is the increasing number of junior colleges which are 
now actually developing educational programs planned solely in terms of 
student needs. I am referring, for example to such junior colleges as those 
represented on our panel to-day. Menlo Junior College, represented by Dr. 
Eurich; Eastern New Mexico Junior College, represented by President Mac- 
Kay; Pasadena Junior College, represented by Dean Harbeson; and the 
General College of the University of Minnesota, represented by Dean Mac- 
Lean. The leadership of such institutions cannot help affecting the situation 
throughout the country. 


A second development which has just been announced is the undertaking 
by the American Association of Junior Colleges of a study of terminal edu- 
cation in the junior college. In setting forth the need for the study, the 
followng statement was made: “The American Association of Junior Col- 
leges has appointed a Policy Committee to consider problems in the junior- 
college field demanding nationwide study. This Committee, after careful 
consideration, feels that the most important and immediate of these problems 
is the task of adequately determining and providing for the needs of youths 
of junior-college age who will not continue their formal education beyond 
the junior-college level.” 


This study is directed by a group of outstanding educators under the lead- 
ership of Dr. W. C. Eells, and the investigation is financed by a grant from 
the General Education Board. Since the investigation is being made by and 
for the American Association of Junior Colleges, we can expect that its 
findings will actually influence practice. We can hope that its findings will 
point the way toward improved recognition of youth needs. 


The junior college has an opportunity to change the lives of millions of 
perplexed youth—youth who are out of work and out of school, youth who 
are to-day crowding our pool halls, street corners, and road houses rather 

-than our class rooms, libraries, and shops. 


This paper was followed by informal discussion. 








140 Nartionat Association or Seconpary-ScHoot Principats_ [ February 


A STUDY OF THE OCCUPATIONAL ADJUSTMENT 
OF SCHOOL-LEAVING YOUTH 


Epwarp Lanpy, Director 


The following paper was presented before the National Voca- 
tional Guidance Association on Friday, February 23, 1940, at St. 
Louis, by Edward Landy, Director of the Occupational Adjustment 
Study, a special study undertaken by the Implementation Committee 
(Will French, Chairman) of the National Association of Secondary- 
School Principals. 

You may recall the story of the school superintendent who was report- 
ing to his board on the pupil failures in the school system. At the end of 
his report, one rather forceful board member, a manufacturer of gloves, 
vehemently protested at the fact that failures existed and boasted that in 
his factory during the past year all gloves produced were perfect—not one 
failure. The school superintendent thought for a moment and then gave 
a classic reply. “Well, sir,” said he, “you can choose your kids and w 
can’t.” 

It is precisely because of this inability to choose exactly the kina 
“kids” they might want to have that high schools are facing many proo- 
lems to-day in American education. It is largely because of this reason 
that regional conferences are held, schools of education exist, and various 
committees are appointed to do their work. It is largely for such a reason, 
the individual differences that exist among our youth, that an Orientation 
Committee, an Implementation Committee, and Occupational Adjust- 
ment Study came into existence. 

You are all familiar with the work of the Committee on Orientation 
of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals and especially 
its reports on the Issues and the Functions of Secondary Education. You 
will remember that one of the main ideas expressed by the Orientation 
Committee in its Functions of Secondary Education was that students 
should not leave school until the school has done what it can to see that 
they are ready to take their place in life outside the school. 

It was because the Executive Committee of the National Association 
recognized the difficulties involved in attempting to carry out such a pro- 
gram that the Committee on Implementation* was appointed in 1937. 


*Consisting of: 
K. J. Clark, Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama (ex officio) , 
Eli Foster, Principal of Central High School, Tulsa, Oklahoma 
Oscar Granger, Principal of the Haverford Township High School, Upper Darby, Pa. 
John W. Harbeson, Principal of the Junior College, Pasadena, California 
F. C. Jenkins, Wesley Hall, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 
George C. Jensen, Principal of Senior High School, Sacramento, California 
DeWitt S. Morgan, Superintendent of Schools, Indianapolis, Indiana 
William F. Rasche, Milwaukee Vocational School, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 
F. T. Spaulding, Professor of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
H. H. Stewart, Principal of the Davis High School, Mount Vernon, New York 
Howard Dare White, Assistant Commissioner of Education, Trenton, New Jersey 
Will ae. Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 

Chairman 





1940] ProcEEDINGS OF TWENTyY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 141 


Its chief function, as I understand it, is to provide, or to suggest, ways and 
means whereby the high school may more adequately do its job as outlined 
by the report on Functions of Secondary Education. 

One of the early decisions of the Implementation Committee was to 
base its activities on declared needs of secondary schools. Accordingly, its 
first project was a study of the most pressing needs or problems confront- 
ing high-school principals to-day. This study is reported in the May, 1939 
issue of the Secondary-School Principals’ Bulletin. At the risk of being 
repetitious, I should like to repeat here some of the main features of that 
study. Mr. Robert B. Patrick, under the direction of Dr. Spaulding, sub- 
mitted a questionnaire to secondary-school principals the country over 
which asked two questions: 

1. What one or two problems in the conduct of your educational 
program have caused you most concern within the last year or 
two years? (If possible, please state each problem in the form of 
a definite question.) 

Was the above statement formulated as a result of faculty dis- 
cussion? 
The questionnaire was deliberately not made up as a check list in order 
to get the relatively free response of the group. 


Analysis of the prolems as stated by the high-school principals showed 
very clearly that the task of meeting the needs of non-academic (or the 
educationally neglected, if you prefer) pupils is one which high-school 
principals everywhere recognized as their outstanding problem. There 
were other implications, but I wish to emphasize this one in particular. 


The Implementation Committee, following the lead of principals as 
revealed in this study and of the Orientation Committee, has set for itself 
as one of its major tasks that of trying to discover ways and means of 
helping high schools to meet the needs of this so-called non-academic group. 
These youth have been characterized by other and probably better terms 
as “school-leavers,” and “the educationally neglected.” They are those 
youth who leave the secondary school either before or as a result of gradua- 
tion and who do not continue on with any further full-time formal 
schooling. 

One of the major jobs which suggested itself to the Committee as a 
result of its survey of the high-school principals’ most pressing problems 
was the need for a study of the adjustment of school-leaving youth to post- 
school life with the main purpose in mind of being able to suggest things 
to do for these youth while they were still in school. The Implementation 
Committee chose to begin this study in the area of occupational adjustment 
because of its basic importance for these youth and because it is relatively 
a more tangible area than some of the others. 





142. Nationa Association oF SeconDARY-ScHooL Principats [February 


The results of Patrick’s Study and of my own limited experience since 
I have been on the Occupational Adjustment Study would lead me to the 
conclusion that high-school principals and school people in general are 
tremendously interested in this problem and eager to do what they can. 
But deciding what to do is a difficult problem and in some respects too 
big for the individual high-school principal, operating under a limited 


budget, to solve. 

The Implementation Committee not only recognized the need for 
suggesting practices to the high-school principals but also the complexity 
of the problem and decided that before making any recommendations it 
would investigate carefully the area of occupational adjustment. It secured, 
therefore, a subvention from the General Education Board to pursue this 
study for one year from July 1, 1939 to July 1, 1940. Because of the com- 
plexity of the problem of occupational adjustment it was recognized at 
the outset that this year’s work might not be fruitful of results and that 
the desired objectives might not be achieved. Briefly, the objectives are: 

1. The development of a relatively simple but valid survey-plan 

which will be of aid to schools in deciding to what extent their 
pupils who have not gone on further with formal schooling make 
in the way of satisfactory occupational adjustments. 


The discovery of techniques and practices which can be introduced 
to make more effective the occupational adjustment of pupils 
whose formal education will cease at graduation if not before. 


I should like to emphasize again that we do not expect as a result of 
this year’s work to arrive at perfect or near-perfect answers to our objec- 
tives. We will be; content, indeed, if we can but demonstrate, through 
actual achievement, that it is possible to evolve tools, techniques, and pro- 
cedures which can be used to establish leads as to the effectiveness of given 
school practices upon the post-school occupational adjustment of youth. 

I might also emphasize that we have undertaken this job with no 
preconceived notions as to what constitutes good practice nor with any 
attempt to justify any advocated practice, but rather in as full and objective 
a fashion as we can develop to gather any evidence ‘which might substan- 
tiate any practice. It is entirely possible that our results may show there is 
no practice, that we have studied at any rate, that can be substantiated as 
worth-while. I do not think that this will be an outcome, but it is possible. 

Very briefly, this is what we are doing. We are getting as much infor- 
mation as we possibly can concerning the youth’s work history from the 
time he left school up until the interview, including both factual informa- 
tion such as employment status, wages, and kinds of jobs held, and 
information concerning opinions and attitudes held by the youth which 
are related to his occupational adjustment. We collect information concern- 





1940] ProcEeDINGs OF TwWENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 143 


ing the youth’s opinions, attitudes, and plans with respect to his future 
occupational adjustment as well. We are getting, in addition, as much 
information as we can concerning his home and school background. We 
are especially concerned in examining his school background to find out 
what significant things he has been exposed to in the school that might 
possibly have some bearing upon his adjustment. We are getting, also, as 
complete and comprehensive information (both facts and opinions) as we 
can from the employer concerning the youth that may be of any signifi- 
cance. We are doing this through the use of a series of interview schedules, 
one each for the employer, for the youth, and the school. 

On the basis of such information gathered, and when completed, it 
will amount to about 175 separate items of information concerning the 
youth’s work, school, and home background, we intend to make inferences 
with respect to the adjustment of the youth as measured by ways in which 
the youth has behaved in attempting to adjust himself occupationally, hy 
the quality of his thinking about his occupational problems which he has 
to face, and by the actual occupational status of the youth. We intend, also, 
to make inferences concerning the value of certain school practices as we 
have been able to observe them, in affecting the post-school occupational 
adjustment of the youths studied, as we have examined it. This will con- 
tribute an answer to one of our two objectives, namely, the recommending 
of a list of practices or techniques for schools to adopt to improve the 
post-school occupational adjustment of their youth. 

An explanation of how we intend to establish leads as to the effective- 
ness of the given school practices and in so doing how we are accounting 
for factors of influence other than school practices would be in order here. 
It would take several hours for me to develop that point carefully and 
thoroughly so that it is impossible for me to go into details here and now, 
but allow me to present at least one possible method. We could isolate a 
given group of youth who are of approximately the same age, have com- 
pleted the same grade, are of approximately the same intelligence, come 
from homes of about the same socio-economic status, and have been out 
of school for the same length of time. Other factors to equate this given 
group-of youth could be selected as well, but these will do to illustrate 
the procedure. These youth then will be alike in many important respects. 
They could then be divided into two groups on the basis of exposure or 
non-exposure to a given practice. The two groups could then be compared 
for adjustment and a lead established as to the value of the given practice 
in affecting occupational adjustment. This is one procedure. We have other 
methods, such as a comparison of youth by schools, for attempting to get 
at the relationship between school practices and occupational adjustment. 

Another question arises here as to just what are our measures of 
occupational adjustment. As I have said we are evaluating the adjustment 





144. Nationat AssociaTIoN oF SECcONDARY-ScHOOL Principats [February 


of the youth in terms of how he has behaved in attempting to adjust him- 
self, by the quality of his thinking about his occupational problems which 
he has to face, and by the actual occupational status of the youth. Such 
things as how well he gets along with his fellow workers, how intelli- 
gently he plans for the future, how intelligently he evaluates his present 
status, what he does to get himself a job, how much employment he has 
had, and how soon he secured work after leaving school, are samples of 
what I mean. There may be some dispute as to the relative weighting of 
these items but we are not concerned with such for our purposes. We do 
not intend to report the youth’s adjustment in terms of a total score, nor 
do we believe that such can be done. What we are concerned with is the 
evaluation of the adjustment of youth in certain areas of adjustment and 
in certain specifics of adjustment. Given school practices may be more 
effective for certain areas of adjustment and less effective in others. We 
are securing judgments of adjustment in three general areas of planning, 
appraisal of present job situation, and adjustment to present job, and in 
forty-two specific ways of behaving or thinking about his occupational 
adjustment. In addition, we have twenty-six items of information having 
to do with the youth’s present occupational status. This gives you some 
idea of how comprehensively we have attempted to evaluate occupational 


adjustment. 

The achievement of the other objective, that of developing a relatively 
simple but valid survey plan, will have to be accomplished by condensing 
and reducing our interview blanks to the most significant and reliably 
secured items of adjustment as we have discovered them and probably to 
divide these items inte those which can be secured through a questionnaire 
and those which must be secured by the interview technique. These blanks 
will have to be accompanied by a complete and detailed manual of instruc- 
tions as to their uses and values. This manual will also contain instructions 
on how high-school principals may tabulate such information gathered, 
quickly, easily, and with a minimum of clerical effort, to form their own 
inferences as to the occupational adjustment of their own school-leavers 
and will suggest ways of analyzing the results so that they may draw 
conclusions with respect to modifying their school programs. 

The value of our recommendations, as to practices, will be somewhat 
restricted because of limitations of time and money available this year, 
which has necessarily limited the scope of the investigation. We are study- 
ing only twelve hundred youth and six schools this year, three in Connecti- 
cut and three in New Jersey, so that obviously our findings will be limited 
as to generalizations to be made. There are other limitations to our sample. 
We are including only those youth who have been out of schools from one 
year and six months to five years and six months; we have eliminated 
married women; and, of course, we are concerned only with those youth 





1940] ProceEDINGs oF TwENTy-FouRTH ANNUAL MEETING 145 


who have not gone on with any further formal schooling. If, however, 
we can demonstrate that generalizations can be made through actual 
experimental work this year which enables us to arrive at definite infer- 
ences, the Study may be greatly expanded to include schools sufficient in 
number and sufficiently diversified in guidance practices, size, offerings, 
types of communities located in, and geographic distribution. Then, gen- 
eralizations can be made which will not be as restricted as by our present 
limitations of sampling. 

Time will not permit my telling you of how we have evolved our 
techniques and tools, nor of our experimental work to determine how reli- 
able our instruments are. It will suffice simply to say here that we are 
reasonably sure that our reporting of facts gathered or judgments made 
about groups of youth will be significantly reliable. My basis for saying 
this will be found in our completed report when published. 


As we have just finished gathering our data and have not, as yet, 
had an opportunity to analyze our results carefully and systematically, I am 
not in a position to-day to report any of our findings in any definite way, 
especially those with respect to the values of the school practices being 
considered. However, I can make a few tentative observations of outstand- 
ing impressions based upon some preliminary tabulations. 


As I have already mentioned, there is a marked eagerness and desire 
on the part of high-school principals to find out what they can do for 
these school-leaving youth. However, the information which some of the 
schools possess about their youth is sharply limited to school marks in 
most cases. One school has a comprehensive objective testing program 
but the information so collected is confined chiefly to academic subjects. 
I recognize the difficulty of getting much else through an objective testing 
program. Another school has made an interesting attempt to individualize 
its treatment of its youth through having all home room and _ subject 
teachers submit narrative reports about each of their youth, in addition to 
regular marks. Usually, the results of one psychological test of mental 
ability are recorded. 

Very little is known, or remembered, at any rate, concerning home 
background, personality, behavior, and occupational interests or plans of 
most of the youth while they were in school. Very little is known con- 
cerning what has happened to the youth since leaving school. These state- 
ments hold true for the majority but not all of the schools studied. You 
may be interested to know how we asked for this information. We have 
one form which is used with the school. Part of the information is secured 
from the permanent record cards by a clerk. To get the remaining infor- 
mation we asked the principal to recommend the one teacher in the school 
who knew most about the pupils we were investigating and whom we 








146 Nartionat AssociATION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats_ [February 


could interview. Thus, our conclusions were not based merely upon pos- 
sible lag between knowing and recording but after an investigation of all 
possible sources, both that recorded on cards and known personally. We 
were not content in many cases merely to ask the designated teacher, but 
went to subject-matter teachers, especially in the vocational-skill providing 
fields, but still with very little results. I say these things not in criticism 
of the schools, for as a high-school principal on leave of absence to do this 
job, I am fully aware of the difficulties involved in getting and keeping 
information of this kind. (I should have been embarrassed if the ques- 
tionnaire which I am using were used on me.) But at any rate, this sug- 
gests one thought, and that is in spite of all our talk about individual 
differences and recognition of them in a general and vague way, we have 
done little actually to do anything about them in a specific way with respect 
to a specific youth in our schools. (I can generalize, here, you see on the 
basis of six schools because what we have found only confirms what was 
found in the New York Inquiry in that direction.) And until we begin to 
know our youth in an individual, concrete, and detailed way, we can 
begin to do little about the problems which face us. 


All of the high-school principals were concerned, however, with this 
problem of getting and recording information, and having it available in 
such a way that the original purpose for having it was not defeated in a 
tangle of red tape. One high-school principal said to me, “We recognize 
that our information on personality of these youngsters is inadequate, but 
frankly, I don’t know of any good method of getting and recording such 
information as yet, and I would rather do nothing than do something 
foolish.” I respect such a man and his opinion. (I might put in here paren- 
thetically that it is my considered judgment that most of the schools with 
which we are working are probably better than average and a few dis- 
tinctly above average in getting and having available information concern- 
ing its youth. So that what I have said should be construed in no way 


as an indictment of these schools.) 


There are other definite indications of an awareness of the problem 
on the part of the high-school principals involved. Several of the prin- 
cipals make it their business to become personally acquainted with as 
many of the employers in the town as they can, both as an aid in placing 
youth in jobs and as a means of knowing how employers react to youth. 
The high-school principals, for the most part, have considered in a general 
way and in some instances on the basis of information gained from school- 
leavers—not through any systematic follow-up of individual youth nor of 
any questionnaire addressed to employers—the kind of work for which 
their schools ought to prepare the youth and have attempted to modify 


their programs in the light of such consideration. 





ent 


Ab 























1940) ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FoURTH ANNUAL MEETING 147 






But what of the youth themselves? How well do they plan? How 
well do they appraise their job situations? Are they employed or not? 
What kinds of jobs are they in? Do they find employment soon after 
leaving school or not? We found* that approximately seventy-five per cent 
of the youth studied were employed at the time of the interview in full-time 
regular jobs, that approximately seven per cent were employed at either 
part-time or irregular jobs, that approximately ten per cent were completely 
unemployed, and the remainder were distributed among such activities as 
WPA, CCC, NYA, or were not in the employment market. We found 
that approximately thirty-two per cent were in clerical and sales occupa- 
tions, twenty-eight per cent in semi-skilled work, ten per cent in skilled and 
the remainder in managerial, skilled, agricultural, and unskilled occupa- 
tions. It is interesting to note that our figures for employment are con- 
siderably higher than other studies similar to ours. Differences in time and 
place probably account for most of this difference. 

We found that approximately fifty per cent secured their jobs through 
one form of influence or another—parents, relatives, friends—approxi- 
mately thirty per cent through random personal applications, and the re- 
mainder through school authorities, public employment agencies, and an- 
swering advertisements. We found that when questioned about their likes 
and dislikes, a large number were concerned only with specific duties of 
their jobs and working conditions. 

Relatively few were concerned with future opportunities nor with 
salary problems. About sixty-five per cent thought they were paid about 
right, while only thirty-seven per cent thought they were underpaid, al- 
though their annual earnings were about $600. Having a job and earning 
something was what counted most of all. 

About eighty per cent secured work within three months of leaving 
school. When they left jobs, it was chiefly because of two reasons, either to 
take a more desirable one in terms of prestige or working conditions, or be- 
cause the job just came to an end. Few left for reasons of pay or because 
they didn’t like the work. Most of them have held three or fewer jobs since 
leaving school, although we studied youth from one year and six months to 
five years and six months out of school. Most of them took their first full- 
time job after leaving school because it was the only one available as far as 
they could tell, and they needed or wanted to work. Very few got into 
their first jobs on the basis of its opportunities, or because of employment 
or wages. 

About twenty-five per cent of those interviewed said they expected to 
enter professional or managerial occupations as their regular occupation. 
About thirty-two per cent want to enter clerical and sales occupations and 


*These figures, it must be emphasized, are but approximations and ‘may be changed slightly one 
way or the other when our final machine tabulations are made. 








148 Nationat AssoctaTIon oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


about twenty per cent, the skill occupations. The remainder were divided 
among the personal service, agricultural, and semiskilled groups. Most of 
the twenty-five per cent wanting to enter professional jobs were doing some 
unrealistic thinking. More youth decided upon their occupations since leav- 
ing school and prior to their present job than for any other time. This 
would suggest the need for a kind of continuous follow up counseling serv- 
ice for youth who have left school to help them in doing some realistic 
thinking about occupational choices. We find that many get their advice 
about occupational problems from friends and relatives, their information 
about training opportunities from advertisements of one kind or another. 
I would make haste to add here that not all of the youth were unrealistic. 
About one third of the youth we studied, it seemed to us, had done realistic 
thinking about their occupational planning. About one third had made 
impractical or impossible plans, or had made no plans and had no concern 
for the future. About one third had made some plans and had done some 
thinking about the future, but they were rather vague and in many instances 
were purely of the kind that would take anything that came along that 
seemed all right. The same ratios hold true approximately for the intelligent 
appraisal of their present job situations which these youth are in. About 
one third had done some very intelligent thinking and had appraised their 
present job situations very well, about one third were either confused 
about the problem or had not concerned themselves with it, while one third 
were somewhere in between these extremes. 

Most of them felt that they were better off occupationally for having 
had some high-school education, although they couldn’t tell why beyond 
some general feeling that high school was useful in occupational adjust- 
ment. Even those who had been most consistently unemployed or most 
obviously maladjusted thought so too. Very few had gone back to the 
school for help for some interesting reasons. A continuous post-schoo! 
adjustment service for these youth, to be provided by the school to bridge 
the gap between school-leaving and successful occupational adjustment 
which is being advocated (and which I believe we eventually will have 
to supply), is going to be a difficult thing to establish. 


I have not been able to provide you with any established conclusions 
as to the values of certain practices in influencing after-school adjustment 
and I have given you but a hasty and incomplete survey of our factual 
findings. As I have stated, telling you of our conclusions is not possible, 
because we have not gone beyond the data-gathering stage yet, and such 
conclusions will come only when we have analyzed our variables and 
made comparisons. Even here, however, certain things are becoming 
perceptible and one that seems to be most perceptible of all is, perhaps, a 
self-evident conclusion, but one, nevertheless, which needs to be verified 
experimentally. It is this. When the school makes an honest-to-goodness 





1940) ProcEEDINGs OF TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 149 


effort to do something about this business, whether it is through a formal 
guidance program or through an informal program which has been devel- 
oped for and adapted to a particular school, then the youth benefits thereby, 
as opposed to the youth for whom nothing specific is done in the school 
on the ground that if the student does well whatever the school offers 
that is sufficient. That is, actually finding out what has happened to school- 
leaving youth, trying to place them on jobs, teaching them how to get 
along with employers and fellow workers (some of our youth studied lost 
their jobs because they quarreled with their fellow workers), teaching 
them how to look for jobs, and providing them with skills, to the extent 
possible, which make for initial competence for a specific job, seem to be 
things which are useful. 


It is my sincere hope, which is slowly becoming a belief, that the 
Occupational Adjustment Study will be able to recommend things to do 
about this problem of effecting better occupational adjustment. It will 
then become the job of the school to do something, which is very much 
the crux of the problem. 


“STUDENT LIFE” IS CALLING 


What can “STUDENT LIFE” do for your students? 


As the official magazine of Student Councils and of National Honor 
Societies, STUDENT LIFE is, for secondary schools, not only the medium 
of exchange of outstanding extra-curriculum activities, but also an outlet 
for the creative work of students in writing, art, and photography. In 
short, its purpose is to encourage better practices in student activities and 
to aid all service clubs in secondary schools. 

And what can your students do for STUDENT LIFE? 

They can write articles covering the extra-curriculum activities in your 
school; write book reviews, original short stories, poems, editorials, and 
plays; supply photographs, action pictures; provide pen and ink drawings to 
illustrate special features; poll the student body on questions pertinent to 
the interests of students. 

Articles describing activities may run three or four hundred words in 
length; they should be supplemented by action pictures showing students 
engaged in the activities described. Original humorous feature stories may 
also run three or four hundred words in length; they may be supplemented 
by pen and ink drawings. 

All other original compositions — essays, editorials, stories, poems, and 
plays — should be moderate in length. Compositions — essays, editorials, 
stories, poems, and plays —concerning the origin of customs related to 








150 Nationa AssoctaTION oF SECONDARY-ScHOOL PrincipaLs [February 


Christmas, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s 
Day, Easter, etc. will be considered. Other materials may be drawn from 
the lives of great American statesmen — Benjamin Franklin, George Wash- 
ington, Abraham Lincoln; from the lives of famous artists, authors, 
musicians. Articles based on tolerance, propaganda, international good will, 
better speech are suggested. Subjects which lend themselves to humorous 


treatment may also be chosen. 


It is suggested that student contributors be selected by the principal 
or a member of the faculty; or that some means be devised whereby the 
students themselves may choose the authors, artists, and photographers 
whom they wish to represent their school and its accomplishments. 


All materials should be typewritten, double spaced, and written on 
one side of the page; original copies, not carbons, should be submitted. 
A short biographical sketch and a picture of the author should accompany 
each contribution. All photographs must be glossy prints. They may be 
made by amateur or professional photographers. Complete information 
for credit and identification should be written on the back of each photo- 
graph. All manuscripts and photographs should be securely wrapped and 
placed in flat envelopes or containers for mailing. 

All manuscripts, photographs, and drawings prepared for a particular 
issue should be received by the editorial office of STUDENT LIFE, 5835 
Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, more than a month prior to the publication 
date of the issue for which such material is intended. 

Subscription rates to STUDENT LIFE are: single $1.00 a year; club, 
three or more copies mailed under single wrapper, 50 cents a year; single, 
to members of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals 
and to faculty sponsors of Student Councils and chapters of the National 
Honor Society, 50 cents a year. 

Sample copies will be sent upon request. Please address your sugges- 
tions or requests for further information to STUDENT LIFE, 5835 Kim- 


bark Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. 











National Honor Society 








MEETING OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF 
THE NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY 
St. Louis, Missouri, February 24, 1940 
The National Council met in the New Hotel Jefferson. Present: 
Members Allen, Comstock, Elicker, Spencer, and Church; absent: Mem- 
bers Brooks, Dickey, Parker, and Peters. 


The terms of Members Allen, Parker, and Spencer terminate at this 
session. The following names were voted on the ballot: 


BALLOT 
(Vote for Four) 


Allen,* Charles Forrest, Educational Writer, Little Rock, Arkansas. 
Spencer,* W. L., Supervisor of Secondary Education, Alabama. 
Nelson, S. E., Principal, Central High School, Chattanooga. 

Amland, H. T., Principal, High School, South St. Paul. 

Hamilton, Jessie M., Principal, Morey Junior High School, Denver. 

Horner, Thomas R., Principal, High School, Charleston, West Vir- 
ginia. 

Rehmus, Paul A., Principal, High School, Grosse Pointe, Michigan 


O 
LJ 
O 
O 
* 
O 
O 
O 


Lowenstein, Fannie, Principal, Southern Junior High School, Louis- 
ville. 


*Present Members of Council. 


(The following were elected: Allen, Hamilton, Rehmus, Spencer. } 


Meeting of February 27, 1940 
The National Council met in the New Hotel Jefferson. Present: Mem- 
_ bers Allen, Comstock, Dickey, Elicker, Rehmus, Spencer, and Church. 
Absent: Members Brooks, Hamilton, and Peters. 
On motion of Member Elicker second Member Spencer, Charles F 
Allen was elected president. 
The matter of blanket insurance for loanees was advocated. 


Adjournment. 
151 























152. Nationav AssociaTION oF SECONDARY-SCHOOL Principats [February 


Important Notice 


In order to inform members of the books tentatively selected for the 
Book-of-the-Quarter Club, a list will be published in each issue of The 
Bulletin. The books now being considered by the Reviewing Board are 
listed below: 

ButLer: The Improvement of Teaching in Secondary Schools. The University 


of Chicago Press. 
Heaton: The Failing Student. The University of Chicago Press. 


Newton: Education for Democracy in Our Time. McGraw-Hill Book Com- 


pany, Ine. 
Democracy’s Challenge to Education. Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. 


Joun Dewey Society: Teachers for Democracy. D. Appleton-Century 


Company. 
Foster: High-School Supervivsion. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 


Nos.e: Practical Measurements for School Administrators. International 
Textbook Company. 


Making Good in College. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 
CLaPr: Community Schools in Action. The Viking Press