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 


May, 1940 
Serial No. 91 








BULLETIN NO. 91 


Counseling 


and 
The Changing Secondary-School Curriculum 


By 
JOHN L. BERGSTRESSER 


SnapsHots of how thirty-eight schools and communities are at- 


tempting to improve the educational opportunity of their youth. 
ping I pp } } 











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 





COUNSELING 


and 


The Changing Secondary-School Curriculum 
By 
JOHN L. BERGSTRESSER 


SnapsHots of how thirty-eight schools and communities are at- 


tempting to improve the educational opportunity of their youth. 


IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE 


DeWirt S. Morcan 


WituraM F. RascHe 


Ext Foster 
Oscar GRANGER 
Joun W. Harseson Francis T, SPAULDING 
P. B. Jacesson (ex officio) H. H. Stewart 
Howarp Dare WHITE 


Witt Frencn, Chairman 


F. C. JENKINS 


GeorceE C. JENSEN 


Published by the National Association of Secondar; School Principals, 1940 





Foreword 


CoNTINUING ITS GENERAL policy of emphasis upon adaptations of 
secondary education to meet the needs of all American youth, the Imple- 
mentation Committee of the National Association of Secondary-School 
Principals presents herewith Counseling and the Changing Secondary. 
School Curriculum. Under the sponsorship of the General Education 
Board, the author, John L. Bergstresser, has had an unusual opportunity 
to visit secondary schools from coast to coast for the purpose of study- 
ing what is being done by schools through counseling and curriculum 
changes better to meet youth’s educational needs. The Committee believes 
that the pictures which the author presents in this study of what is going 


on in thirty-eight schools and the impressions which he, as an experienced 
worker in guidance gained, will be valuable to other schools which are 
seeking to improve their educational services and programs, and conse- 
quently the Committee is gratified to be able to present this monograph. 


It is indebted both to Dr. Bergstresser and to the General Education 
Board for the opportunity to present this material as a bulletin of the 
National Association of Secondary-School Principals. 


Wie Frencnu, Chairman 





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Contents 


FOREWORD 


CHAPTER I 


The Whys and Wherefores of the Report 


Cuaprer IT 


The Youth Problem and the Sehools 


Cuaprer III 
Some Planks in a Platform for Reconstructing 
Secondary Education 
Cuapter IV 


Visits to Junior High Schools 


CuaPTER V 


Visits to Senior High Schools 


Cuapter VI 


Programs of School and Community Action 


Cuaptrer VIT 


\ Word in Conclusion 


Book Novres 

IMPORTANT NOTICE 

News IreMs 

SUMMER CONVENTION PROGRAM 
Winter MEETING 1941 


STANDARDIZED PERSONNEL BLANKS . 


CALEYDAR OF PROFESSIONAL EVENTS, ..............--.--------- 


eta ade Hunteneo areca 116 


OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCTATION......................--------- Inside Front Cover 


SECRETARIES OF STATE ORGANIZATIONS 


Inside Back Cover 








CHAPTER I 


The Whys and Wherefores of the Report 


Between Octoser, 1938, and June, 1939, while serving as a consultant 
to the General Education Board, the writer had the rare privilege of visiting 
approximately ninety secondary schools in the northeastern, middle western, 
and southwestern sections of the country. The general aim of these visits 
might be said to be an attempt, through informal observation, interviews, 
and conferences, to acquire an understanding of some of the new measures 
which schools are trying out as aids in the solution of the most pressing 
secondary-school problems that have grown out of economic and social 
conditions of the past ten years. Another way to characterize these visits 
is to describe them as an effort to find out what some schools are actually 
doing to modify their programs as a consequence of their acceptance of 
certain new implications for secondary education which are predicated 
upon modern conditions for youth. The specific implications which the 
writer had in mind will be stated in Chapter III. 

What specific guidance practices and curriculum modifications are 
being developed to meet the present needs—and especially the occupational 
needs—of young people whose formal education terminates in the junior 
and senior high school? This was the most important of all the questions 
which were kept prominently in mind during the school visits. 

In the selection of schools to be visited reliance was placed upon the 
opinions and suggestions of recognized experts in such fields as guidance, 
curriculum, and administration. Suggestions were also received from 
school people and others who had worked on youth and educational sur- 
veys, and from the current literature on guidance and secondary education. 
Of the several hundred schools which appeared to be promising prospects 
only a relatively small proportion could actually be visited. In making the 
final choices among the schools listed, the selective criteria were largely 
factors of chance and necessity, such as exigencies of travel schedules, neces- 
sity of correlating school visits with various conferences and other obliga- 
tions, and limitations in time. 

It is not to be assumed, therefore, that the schools visited represent, 
either theoretically or actually, the best possible sampling that could be 
mage of schools of the desired type. Without a doubt some of the most 
interesting and significant of such schools were inevitably omitted. On the 
other hand, the group of schools chosen cannot be called a random sampling 
or cross section of secondary schools in general. The chosen schools are 
manifestly a rather highly selected sampling, very much better than aver- 
age as a group, in terms of the criteria of selection. Even so, it should be 


7 












| May 


Nacional Association of Secondary-School Principals 





pointed out that by no means all of the schools in this group are at present 
engaged in reconstructing their programs upon a really broad scale. Some 
of the schools are experimenting with only a few aspects of the total school 
program. Nevertheless, all of these schools have, in one respect or another 
and to a greater or lesser degree, advanced from the level of discussion and 
theory to the more active stage of experimentation and implementation. 

The visits to schools were made very informally. The writer did not 
go to the schools as an official investigator or for the purpose of making a 
survey. He went merely as a friendly visitor, and was invariably treated 
as such by the school people who were his hosts. To principals and superin- 
tendents he stated frankly that he was interested in knowing about and 
observing guidance procedures, curriculum changes, special classes, tech- 
niques for helping teachers to gain new insights and to improve their 
effectiveness—in short, anything related to the work of the school which 
was aimed at the improvement of the educational program for pupils whose 
formal education would not extend beyond high school. Ordinarily not 
more than a day was devoted to any one school, and sometimes the time 
available was limited to half a day. Whenever possible, a major part of 
the time was spent in visiting counselors’ offices, observing classes and in- 
dividual pupils at work, and talking with teachers and pupils. The object 
was to try to see aspects of the school program as they appear in operation, 
as well as how they appear on paper, in outlines, charts, syllabi, and so 
forth. Emphasis was placed upon getting a large sampling of firsthand 
observations and experiences rather than upon acquiring a neat abstract 
picture of a school’s total program—that is, actually to get the spicy taste 
and flavor of some of the chef’s specials on the educational menu, rather 
than to read the bill of fare with the critical eye of a dietitian whose pur- 
pose is to judge the completeness and quality of the menu as a whole. The 
disadvantages of this approach are recognized. For instance, there is always 
the risk of failing to comprehend the whole pattern through overabsorption 
in some of the interesting pieces. But there are also obvious advantages in 
obtaining information and impressions through informal observation and 
person-to-person conversations. The positive values of this procedure are 
thought to be sufficient to justify its use as one of several methods for 
examining the school program; and that is all that is claimed for it. 

In the discussion of visits to schools, a sort of diary form of presenta- 
tion will be made, a kind of mixture of narrative reporting and interpretive 
exposition. The effort will be made to “take the reader into the school 
situation” as much as possible, to give the reader vicariously, to some 
extent, the experience of having visited the school himself. It seems that this 
purpose will be better served by speaking about the schools one at a time 
than by selecting fragments from the stories of several school visits to 











1940] The Whys and Wherefores of the Report 


illustrate a succession of types of school practices. In deciding upon this 
form of presentation, the writer has received encouragement from his expe- 
riences in talking to several groups of secondary-school teachers, counselors, 
and administrators. Some of these school people have said that this method 
of reporting helped them to visualize actual school situations. Again, how- 
ever, the method is considered to be only one of several which can be 
profitably exploited to describe and appraise school programs. 


Speaking of the evaluative aspects of the report to be made on school 
practices, it should be evident that any judgments expressed and values 
asserted are necessarily subjective in character. Naturally, the reader should 
be forewarned of the inevitable influence of the writer’s personal biases, 
which, he trusts, will be made fairly evident in the pages which are to 
follow. There is a frank intention to make a report which is more than a 
mere list of practices and procedures or a completely neutral description 
of them. Consequently, there will be no hesitation in allowing appraisals 
to creep in, either directly or by implication, whenever there seems to be 
adequate evidence for them. Because the primary concern was the discovery 
of experiences and practices which seem interesting and promising, rather 
than the discovery of weaknesses and deficiencies in school programs, most 
of the evaluative comments will be of a favorable nature. 


The procedures that have been used for studying and reporting on 


schools will, it is hoped, supplement in a useful way other studies which 
are likewise concerned with the implementation of newly conceived second- 
ary-school functions and objectives, but which have taken a different ap- 
proach to the subject. The recently published monograph, That All May 
Learn, by B. L. Dodds’, is an example of a very desirable and fruitful 
approach which is different from the one used in this report. Dodds has 
brought together many useful data which are of great service to secondary- 
school people in identifying those pupils who are at present the education- 
ally neglected, in understanding their characteristics and needs, and in 
considering how they may best be taught. Dodds also includes in his mono- 
graph descriptions of new procedures, courses and curricula which are 
being utilized by secondary schools for the improvement of opportunities 
among the educationally neglected. The present writer hopes that his re- 
ports of visits to secondary schools will supplement Dodd’s monograph by 
supplying other kinds of information about implementation programs, par- 
tially through eye-witness accounts of new and experimental school prac- 
tices. Many persons engaged in secondary education have been heard to 
express a desire for more information than is now generally available about 
the steps that schools are taking for the benefit of the educationally neg- 


1B. L. Dodds, That All May Learn. ‘‘The Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary- 
School Principals,’ November, 1939. 





10 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [ May 


lected and about the results of these projects. It is hoped that to get down 
to specific cases through descriptions of actual school situations will help to 
clarify further various proposals which have been made for the reconstruc- 
tion of the school program and to encourage increased experimentation in 
all types of secondary schools. 


In the pages which follow it will not be practicable to include accounts 
of all of the school visits that were made. The omission, dictated by space 
limitations, of comments concerning many of the schools visited does not 
imply a lack of appreciation for what these schools are achieving nor a 
critical or negative attitude toward them. The selective factors which had 
to be considered were these: range and variety in the school practices de- 
scribed, variation in the kinds of schools represented, and adequacy of 
the writer’s observational records and other school data. The necessity for 
delimitation will be apparent when it is revealed that, among the data 
which were gathered during an eight-months’ period, the writer’s diary of 
school visits alone fills considerally more than three hundred single-spaced 
typewritten pages. The actual account of school visits, which will begin in 
Chapter IV, consists, in large part, of selected and edited excerpts of this 
diary, which was written from day to day as the school visits were being 


made. 


Occasional slight inaccuracies of statement are probably the inevitable 
consequence of the informal procedures which were used in obtaining and 
recording information. The writer wishes to apologize in advance for any 
errors of omission or commission which are unwittingly made. He also 
wishes to take this occasion to express his sincere thanks to a host of second- 
ary-school administrators and teachers, far too numerous to mention by 
name, for their gracious hospitality, willing assistance, and cordial co- 
Operation. 

The accounts of school visits will be classified roughly under the head- 
ings of junior high schools, senior high schools, and community programs 
of action. Preceding these comments concerning specific schools and com- 
munities, there will be two chapters which are intended to portray the 


writer’s general viewpoint concerning some pressing needs in secondary 
education and to reveal the presuppositions which influenced his observa- 
tions. The first of these two chapters (Chapter IT) will discuss present con- 
ditions for youth and some resultant youth problems. The second of these 
chapters (Chapter IIT) will set forth some implications for secondary edu- 
cation growing out of modern conditions which appear to the writer to have 


vital significance just now for school administrators and teachers. 





aware 

a 
the exg 
ground 


CHAPTER II 


The Youth Problem and the Schools 


ConDITIONS GROWING out of the unparalleled economic and social up- 
heavals of the decade recently passed have fashioned a new, difficult, and 
perplexing world for to-day’s youth. In this country, as almost everywhere, 
the resultant problems have made exceptionally heavy demands upon every 
institution which society has created to foster and preserve its own welfare. 
Most urgently is this the case for all the secondary schools, the junior and 
senior high schools, and the junior colleges, which are providing the last 
years of full-time educational training for that tremendous majority of our 
total youth who take permanent leave of formal education between the ages 


of sixteen (or fourteen in many areas) and twenty. 


Literally millions of these youths have not found steady work or have 
been compelled to take monotonous, blind-alley jobs. Great numbers of 
them have not yet been able to establish fully their status as adults in so- 
ciety. Marriage and normal sex adjustment have been denied to many young 
men and women as they have reached full physical maturity and moved on 
through their twenties. Hundreds of thousands of young people have had to 
continue their dependency upon homes in which the parents themselves 
have suffered the shattering effects of financial insecurity. Because of all these 


and other seemingly insoluble difficulties encountered by youth after they 
have terminated their formal education in the secondary schools, these 
schools have had to withstand the brunt of the vigorous, and sometimes un- 
fair and vicious, attacks that have been made upon the educational system 
for its failure to prepare its pupils for successful living in the America of 


to-day. 

The secondary schools have also been on the firing line in the crucial 
struggle that the educational system has been making—wherever it has re- 
fused to yield to the inertia of defeatism or to employ the purely defensive 
tactics of “alibi-ing” and attempting to divert the attack—to discover more 
effective educational procedures and experiences for preparing youths to 
solve their major problems of postschool adjustment. Doubtless it is the 
hope of some of those who are actively engaged in this search that its 
successful conclusion will, in the long run, also enable the young people to 
participate sturdily and intelligently in the continuing effort which must 
be made in America to preserve the democratic way of life. 


Since the early thirties this country has been growing increasingly 
aware of and disturbed, as never before, by what is now commonly called 


14s an excuse for the atrocity committed between the quotation marks, the writer might offer 
the explanation that the schools which rely upon the alibi are merely defending themselves on the 
ground that they were ‘‘elsewhere when the crime was committeed."’ 


11 














12 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 










“the youth problem.” The depth of our concern can be attributed not only 
to the piling up of facts and figures about the sorry plight of our own youth, 
but also to the distressing, though frequently repressed, fears which wormed 
their way into our minds as we began to sense the full implications of the 
solutions to the youth problem that were being advanced and put into 
operation in Hitler’s Germany and elsewhere. In the minds of more and 
more of us the catch phrase “it can’t happen here” came to be followed, 
consciously or subconsciously, by a question mark—if not by a cynical “Oh, 









yeah!” 

We can see now, as we scan the events of the past few years and as 
we study the volumes of evidence uncovered by the American Youth Com- 
mission and a host of other fact-finding agencies concerning the thoughts 
and actions of the masses of out-of-school and out-of-work youth, that our 
worst fears have been unfounded—up to now, at any rate. The evidence 
available shows that the vast majority of American youth have not fallen 
easy prey to purveyors of cockeyed cure-alls or to the insidious promises of 
the exponents of authoritarianism. A rather confused and inarticulate, yet 
tenacious, belief in democracy, a strong, though often blind, faith in the 
future of America, continues to exert a stabilizing influence upon the minds 
of a large proportion of our population, especially among the numerically 
and politically important middle class. As long as this belief remains strong 
enough to prevent widespread unrest and powerful movements for drastic 
economic and political reorganization among adults, our youth will prob- 
ably continue to be poor prospects for would-be Pied Pipers. Furthermore, 
America has far greater resources than were available to Germany, for in- 
stance, with which to ease and eventually solve the difficulties of youth to- 
day. At least a fractional part of these resources has already been devoted 
to the objective study of the youth problem and to concrete enterprises for 
giving real assistance to youth. The continuous, constructive efforts of many 
varieties of youth-serving agencies, public and private, obviously constitute 
another potent, controlling factor in the American youth situation. 



























The fact that the mass of American youth have not become bitterly 
articulate or actively resentful of the social order, however, should not blind 
us to the urgent need for action which still faces us. That our young people 
have not, on the whole, badgered themselves into a state of hysteria and 
open rebellion should not dupe us into believing that danger no longer 
exists. Among youth to-day there is entirely too much apathy, uncertainty 
of the future, discouragement, drifting, and genuine financial distress to 
warrant any such Pollyanna viewpoint. Within the past few months the 
American Youth Commission’ has issued several dramatic radio warnings 














2Recommendations of the American Youth Commission are listed in a pamphlet entitled A Pro 
gram of Action for American Youth which was published late in 1939. 



















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1940] The Youth Problem and the Schools 13 


on this score, which have been accompanied by proposals for action and 
appeals for additional federal funds for the assistance of youth. 


We should recognize that the youth problem is a complicated poser 
which involves, not one, but many aspects of living and preparation for 
living. This has been made increasingly clear by a number of youth studies 
during the past few years. These studies have identified and defined a va- 
riety of serious problem areas, such as: jobs for youth, preparation for em- 
ployment, physical and mental health, family, marriage, leisure time, rural 
youth, racial issues, citizenship and preparation for its responsibilities, 
self-expression, population trends and their implications, and equality 
(which is not to say identity) of educational opportunity.’ 

All the foregoing problems are interrelated. Each of them is vital. Not 
one should be forgotten or neglected. At the same time, it may be wise as a 
matter of strategy to direct a major attack first of all at that sector where 
the enemy is doing the greatest damage to our defenses and to our morale. 
The most immediately crucial problem to attack, according to many emi- 
nent strategists, is that of finding or creating employment for youth and of 
better preparing youth to adjust themselves in a changed and still changing 
vocational milieu. This appears to be the position that was taken by the 
American Youth Commission after it had made far-reaching studies of its 
own and had scrutinized the findings of a great number of other youth 
studies. To direct a major assault upon obstacles related to the occupational 
placement and adjustment of youth, let it be explicitly emphasized, is not 
to ignore the possibility of strong, synchronized attacks upon all of the 
related problems. Indeed, the American Youth Commission itself has ex- 
ploited this possibility consistently. 

The youth problem is not only complex; it is extensive in scope and 
Gargantuan in size. Neither the school system nor any other one social 
agency, no matter how well endowed with personnel and funds, can solve 
this hydra-headed problem unaided. In cities, towns, and rural areas the 
resources of all community agencies should be mobilized for a coérdinated 
attack, By resources is meant funds of brains and energy, as well as funds 
of money. By community agencies is meant not only the local units of gov- 
ernment with their powers of legislation and taxation, but also the schools, 
social-service institutions, churches, civic and service clubs, fraternal organi- 
zations, youth organizations, employer and labor groups, professional as- 
sociations, libraries, museums, and so on. 

To local efforts there should be added the resources of state agencies, 
not forgetting the universities, teachers colleges, state boards of labor, com- 


84 recent and very revealing study is Equal Educational Opportunity for Youth by Newton 
Edwards, a report to the American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education, 


Washington, D. C., 1939. 














14 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


merce, health, et cetera, nor the many private state-wide agencies, Finally, 
the resources of the Federal Government and of privately supported 
national agencies should be marshaled. These national resources should 
provide direct financial assistance, especially to the more sorely pressed 
states and localities which are prepared to demonstrate a genuine sense of 
social responsibility for youth by utilizing fully their own available re- 
sources of money, intelligence, and codperative enterprise. National assist- 
ance is also needed for study of the youth problem on a country-wide basis, 
for broad-scale coordination and planning, for setting up experimental 
projects in coOperation with states and communities, and for interpreting 
and publicizing the results of experimentation and research. 

The efforts of community or state or national agencies, alone and in- 
dependent of each other, can do no more to solve the youth problem than 
they can to solve any other major American problem in this age of inter- 
dependency. However intelligently and energetically the local communities 
employed their own resources, they would generally—if not aided by state 
and national agencies—bog down before attaining a really conclusive vic- 
tory. The trouble is that a single community has not a long enough reach 
to place a knockout wallop on all of the basic causes of the difficulties faced 
by its young people. To bear down on causes that are deeply rooted in the 
economic and social structure of the country as a whole and of state or 
region necessitates study, planning, experimentation, and co6rdinated action 
on national and state or regional bases. Conversely, the expenditure of the 
vast resources of the Federal Government and private agencies which are 
predominantly national in character would produce only meager results in 
the end if most local communities took the position that the problem had 
grown too big for them to tackle, and then idly waited their turns in the 
bread lines for handouts from Uncle Sam and his wealthy private friends. 

The nature of the part played by the local community needs even more 
emphasis than it has received in the voluminous literature of the youth 
problem. Although we have recognized that the utmost individual communi- 
ties can do in the war on youth problems must be supplemented and sup- 
ported in the rear by state and national forces, it should be made equally 
apparent that the front-line trenches are always in these same communities. 
In them a large proportion of youth experience practically all of their pri- 
mary and most of their secondary social relationships. In their home com- 
munities they have their face-to-face contacts with each other and with adults 
—with placement officers and employers, fellow workers, adult relatives 
and friends, school teachers and administrators, attendance officers, minis- 
ters, scoutmasters, social workers, relief officers, unemployed adults, judges, 
politicians, police officers, and so on. These contacts constitute concrete life 
situations in terms of which youth actually feel and define their individual 





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1940] The Youth Problem and the Schools ~ 15 


and intensely personal problems of employment, leisure time, self-expres- 
sion, social life, sex adjustment, race relationships, health, and educational 
training. 

To put it another way, the types and especially the character of such 
experiences are important because face-to-face contacts are powerful pri- 
mary stimuli which condition both the conscious thought and affective 
being of the young people. Perhaps for most youth the effects of any single 
contact or the mere additive effects of many are not as significant as some 
other more subtle and complex effects upon the individual’s Gestalt or design 
for living. In either event, most psychologists and sociologists would agree 
that these face-to-face contacts are potent influencers of the aims, the actions, 
and the morale of young people. In so-called normal times when youths left 
school in their teens they could usually find jobs or begin an apprenticeship 
of some kind. In that case, they were not only kept constructively occupied 
a good part of the time, but they also attained a certain measure of adult 
status. Thus during the transitional years from late adolescence to the adult 
world they were in a much more favorable position than most of to-day’s 
youth in their personal relationships with adults. At present, it is well to 
remember that the contacts of youth with adults are often subject to heavy 
strains because of circumstances which force young people to prolong their 
economic dependency and their adolescent roles for some time after they 
leave school. While physically and chronologically these youths are ap- 
proaching or have reached adulthood, they are still treated as children in 
many respects, although in some situations a large degree of maturity is 
expected or demanded of them. The ambivalent role which is thus thrust 
upon them frequently makes their contacts with adults difficult, irritating, 
and confusing. Under these circumstances, much harm can be done by 
adults who lack insight into the problems involved in the changed condi- 
tions and who do not possess the generous impulse to exercise tact and 
understanding in their direct contacts with youth. 


There is a convincing ring in the assertion so often made by war vet- 
erans that for the buck private at the front the immediate environment is 
vastly more important to his fitness and morale at any given time than the 
grand strategy of the generals or the worthiness of the cause he serves. To 
the man on the firing line the conditions of the immediate environment 
are his war. He usually lacks both the opportunity and the advantage of 
perspective which are available to high ranking officers far back of the front 
tor thinking things out with the detachment essential to getting an over- 
view or a long-time view of the situation. It is not surprising that he ordi- 
narily does not consciously concern himself much about the progress of the 


war as a whole. 















[May 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


This is not a matter of callousness or indifference. It simply means 
that the private is too preoccupied with his own struggle for existence on 
the best terms possible under unpropitious circumstances. Actual physical 
conditions and the consequences of enemy action in the near future may 
be unpredictable, and there may be very little that anyone can do to change 
them radically in a hurry. But here is the important point—the tolerable- 
ness of the situation for the individual soldier and his determination to 
make the best of it, especially under the most distressing circumstances, de- 
pends in large measure upon his immediate personal relationships. For men 
in the front line these relationships are established by direct contacts with 
fellow privates and with the mess crew, the medical corps, the chaplains, 
the noncoms, the second lieutenants, and so on. As any experienced soldier 
will testify (if you ask in the appropriate vocabulary) the nature and affec- 
tive quality of these face-to-face contacts make a whale of a difference in 
how the war shapes up to a man. 

The foregoing military analogy, it seems to the writer, can be applied 
to the so-called war on the youth problem in a rather direct and justifiable 
manner. The generals who plan the major strategy of the war are those 
who are attempting to solve the fundamental causes of the youth problem 
along state or regional and national lines. The noncoms and commissioned 
officers of lower rank are adults in the community who have the responsi- 
bility for training and guiding youth and then leading them into the battle 
with postschool problems. ‘The community itself is the fighting front. The 
youth are the infantry on the firing line. Since a decisive victory is ordi- 
narily achieved only when the infantry is able to advance and occupy enemy 
territory which has been made vulnerable by large scale strategy or heavy 
artillery bombardment from the rear, the factors which make for good 
morale and the capacity for continued combat at the front are of supreme 
importance. If these are neglected, the work of the heavy artillery and the 
master plans of the major strategists may be largely wasted. 

Fortunately, in spite of the insuperable obstacles in the way of quick 
and sweeping victories in the war on the youth problem, much can be done 
without delay to improve conditions at the front, that is, the local commu- 
nity. The primary and secondary relationships of youths among themselves 
and with adults in the community, and thus many environmental influences 
and pressures which are dependent upon these relationships, can be re- 
vised. Many environmental factors related to training, guidance, use of 
leisure time, social life, health, and, in some instances placement and em- 
ployment are variables which are to a considerable extent subject to com- 
munity control. The modifications possible in the situation are extensive 
and drastic. Some of these changes can be effected fairly rapidly and at 
comparatively small cost. Equally as important as money for getting results 












1940 | The Youth Problem and the Schools 17 


are understanding of the present real needs of the local youth based upon 
evidence rather than guesswork, determination to find ways of meeting 
these needs more adequately than before, social sensitivity, a readiness to 
experiment with promising new concepts and procedures, and the willing- 
ness of individuals and community agencies to plan and act codperatively. 

In the community situation the secondary schools have heavy responsi- 
bilities and correspondingly large opportunities for service. The teachers 
and administrators of these schools have presumably studied the social 
sciences and have acquired at least some abstract knowledge of social and 
economic forces and of democratic institutions. They should be able to read 
and digest the results of surveys and researches. Through libraries, colleges, 
and professional associations they have ready access to the literature which 
reports the findings of youth studies and attempts to extract valid conclu- 
sions, inferences, and implications for schools from the data. One service, 
then, that they can perform is to interpret to the community in nontechnical 
and easily understandable form the information and “leads” which are 
necessary as a basis for codperative community planning and coordinated 
action. 

Secondly, secondary schools are in an advantageous position to take 
the initiative in urging all community social agencies to codperate effec- 
tively. The school, theoretically at any rate, serves all young people impar- 
tially without regard to race, creed, color, political faith, ability, or economic 
status. The school does not have a limited or special clientele. It has no 
partisan ax to grind. If it takes the lead in seeking the help and the co- 
Operation of other agencies and institutions, it should be able to do so with- 
out arousing suspicion of ulterior motives or self-seeking. The school can 
and should engage actively in rallying other social agencies for united 
action in the attack upon the youth problem. Furthermore, after it has 
taken the leadership, the school should also be willing to step gracefully 
back into the ranks whenever it is more effective to have some other existing 
agency or some newly created community agency fulfill the functions of 
coérdination and leadership. 


Thirdly, and most important, the secondary school has responsibilities 
in reference to the training and guidance of youth which are unique to 
it—unique not only because of the particular jobs which have been as- 
signed by society to secondary schools in the past, but also because of the 
new tasks which are demanded of the schools by the conditions of the 
present. 


What are the new tasks and changes in program which the schools 
should undertake? Convincing answers to this question can be formulated 
from an analysis of the many comprehensive studies which have been made 














18 National Association of Secondary-School Principals | May 





during the past five or six years. Conspicuous among the publications which 
have become available are those of the Regents’ Inquiry into the Character 
and Cost of Education in the State of New York, the Educational Policies 
Commission of the National Education Association, the Commission on 
Human Relations and the Commission on Secondary-School Curriculum 
of the Progressive Education Association, the American Youth Commission, 
and the Federal Government’s Advisory Committee on Education. Al- 
though some of these publications are necessarily too technical, too bulky, 
and perhaps too expensive to be widely circulated and read even among 
professional educators, there are a number of them which are concise and 
inexpensive, as well as readily understandable to educators and laymen 
alike. Also, it is increasingly common to find in nonprofessional periodicals 
good articles which attempt to summarize for the general public the mean- 
ing and implications of the data from these researches. An example of 
the latter is the stimulating article entitled “The Nation Challenges the 
Schools” by Dean Henry W. Holmes in the January, 1940, issue of The 
Adanuc. 

The needs of the average school teacher and administrator, of the aver- 
age worker and executive in other social agencies, and of socially sensitive 
laymen for brief, authoritative, definitive summaries of data on youth prob- 
lems and their implications for schools and other community agencies have 
been especially well provided for by the American Youth Commission. 
How Fare American Youth? by Homer P. Rainey and others’ presents in 
terse, simple language an admirable overview of youth problems generally 
in a small volume of only 186 pages. The third chapter of that book alone 
brings to a focus in twenty pages cogent facts concerning modern youth 
and some resultant challenges for schools which are of startling significance 
to the thinking of local administrators and teachers. 


Still another publication of the American Youth Commission merits 
the special attention of all school people and laymen, namely, a report by 
Harl R. Douglass which is called Secondary Education for Youth in Mod- 
ern America. This 137-page monograph is an intelligible and succinct 
statement of what the secondary schools are up against as the result of 
youth problems of the day and what these schools must do to fulfill suc- 
cessfully their functions in a modern democratic society. The report simpli- 
fies and synthesizes for the reader the multiplicity of facts and factors which 
enter into the problem dealt with. It focuses attention on the large basic 
issues which must be reckoned with by secondary schools in formulating a 
revised program. It sets forth unequivocally the general prerequisites of 


‘Homer P. Rainey and others, How Fare American Youth? A Report to the American Youth 
Commission of the American Council on Education, New York, D. Appleton-Century, 1938. 

5Harl R. Douglass, Secondary Education for Youth in Modern America. A Report of the Ameri 
can Youth Commission of the American Council on Education. American Council on Education 


Washington, D. C., 193 














1940 | The Youth Problem and the Schools 19 


what Douglass believes to be a desirable program of universal secondary 
education. Implications for the secondary school and proposals for imple- 
mentation in the school program are stated with definiteness. 

Ignoring the minutiae which might too easily lead to endless and 
profitless argument—such as, certain of the specific proposals for imple- 
mentation—the program advocated by Douglass provides a practical work- 
ing blueprint for the reconstruction of secondary education which has won 
hearty approval of its general outlines from many socially responsible edu- 
cators and school board members who have been impressed by its convinc- 
ing logic. Those who read and are convinced should also be stimulated to 
formulate ideas appropriate for prompt application in the local situation 
and charged with zeal to begin the job. Those who read and are not con- 
vinced should be challenged to reinterpret the facts for themselves and to 
formulate in equally definitive terms their own programs of secondary edu- 
cation. This might conceivably result in proposals for radically different 
programs which still aimed to fulfill all the functions which Douglass as- 
cribes to secondary education. More likely, however, it would lead to a 
radically different conception and definition of the legitimate functions of 
secondary schools. 

There are those who view with profound distaste and alarm the ex- 
perimentation and alteration in practice which would be necessitated by 
acceptance of the newly formulated secondary-school functions and the 
new kinds of educational programs that have been proposed to meet the 
depression-born conditions of the present. Certainly this would be true of 
any educator who firmly believes that the only primary purpose of second- 
ary education is preparation of a limited proportion of youth for college, 
and that the only legitimate secondary-school content is to be found in a 
linguistic and mathematical or classical curriculum. Would the educators 
who take or lean strongly toward this position prefer to have all or most 
of the newer functions and activities of the revised secondary-school pro- 
gram advocated by Douglass taken care of by the expansion of C.C.C. 
camps and N.Y.A. resident centers or by the creation of new local, state, 
or national youth agencies? If so, let them openly express their preference. 
A forthright statement of their arguments for a secondary-school program 
of definitely limited scope and their open advocacy of an alternative social 
policy for aiding all youths who do not adapt themselves to this restricted 
program would be salutary. First, such a statement would clear these edu- 
cators of the suspicion that they are callously indifferent about the welfare 
of the majority of youth to-day. Secondly, it would prove that these edu- 
cators are not deluding themselves or attempting to deceive others into 
believing that the kind of program they stand for does or can adequately 
prepare all youth for life in modern America. Thirdly, it. would bring the 

















[ May 





20 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


opposing educational philosophies and programs out into the open for all 
to examine and debate. If the premises, conclusions, and proposals of those 
who are strongly opposed to Douglass’ general viewpoint were stated as 
frankly and unequivocally as Douglass has stated his case, much of the fog 
and confusion induced by concealed motives and objectives, undercover 
skirmishes among the vested interests of the profession, unanalyzed preju- 
dices and stereotypes, and opportunistic compromises might be dispelled. 
At any rate, the attempt should be made in order to help both schoolmen 
and laymen to reach decisions about educational policy in their own com- 
munities with their eyes wide open. The concise, fearless, and unambiguous 
statement of the case for a narrowly restricted secondary-school program in 
America under present conditions, however, still remains to be made in so 
far as the writer can judge; and he is thoroughly disqualified by his own 
experience and convictions for tackling the job himself. 



























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are 
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14 
People 
Commis 


CHAPTER III 


Some Planks in a Platform for Reconstructing 
Secondary Education 


It sHouLp BE clear by now that the writer stands squarely with those 
who believe that new times demand new measures in secondary education. 
To attempt to present a truly comprehensive list of the implications for 
secondary education which are suggested by the facts about modern Ameri- 
czn youth would require more space than could be justified in this report. 
In any case, the job has already been done very effectively by Douglass and 
others. Here it should suffice to try to select and paraphrase rather briefly 
a few of the implications which have been put forward that are particularly 
pertinent to the subject matter of this report. In preparing such a state- 
ment, the writer has drawn liberally upon the writings of Douglass and of 
Rainey and others which have been previously cited and upon the Mary- 
land study of the American Youth Commission.’ Virtually all of the im- 
plications stated below will be found in one or another of these sources. 
Also in these references will be found the essential statistical data and the 
premises upon which the implications are based. In the interest of brevity, 
however, references to specific sources of the various implications will be 


omitted. 


Some IMPLICATIONS FOR SECONDARY EpucaTION WuicH ARE PREDICATED 
Upon THE Finpincs oF Recent StuprEs oF AMERICAN YOUTH 


1, Extensive modifications of the secondary-school program are essen- 
tial to provide for the present needs of youth, particularly for those who 
are not qualified to go on into college or into specialized vocational train- 
ing for skilled trades and for those who now leave school before graduation 
from high school. At a conservative estimate this means that the school 
program needs revision to provide adequately for at least one half of the 
present high-school graduates and at least two thirds of all youth of high- 
school age, approximately one third of whom are not now enrolled in any 
school. 

2. In the reconstruction of secondary education one objective should 
be to help close the wide gap which exists for many young people between 
leaving school and getting a job. This gap is an especially serious problem 
f6r young people who now leave school before the age of eighteen, because 
job opportunities for youth below this age have become exceedingly scarce. 
Raising the compulsory school attendance age to eighteen is a possible, 

IHoward M. Bell, Youth Tell Their Story. A Study of the Conditions and Attitudes of Young 


People in Maryland between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four conducted for the American Youth 
Commission, Washington, D. C. American Council on Education, 1938. 


21 








[ May 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals 






though debatable, solution. Nevertheless, under present conditions, the 
secondary schools have an unmistakable obligation to retain as many pupils 
as possible until the age of eighteen regardless of compulsory attendance 
laws. The crux of the problem is not so much compulsory attendance in 
the traditional high school as it is the reconstruction of the high school in 
the light of the facts concerning the needs, interests, and abilities of those 
who are not adapted to the present program. 

3. At present, one of the most vital needs of youth is preparation for 
finding a job and adjusting himself occupationally. Secondary schools de- 
voted to general education that profess to be concerned with the real needs 
of young people cannot logically ignore a need which changing economic 
conditions have made immediately crucial and pressing for those whose 
formal education ends at the secondary level. During the terminal years 
of a youth’s formal education he should be given preparation for vocational 
life. For a large majority of youth these terminal years at present are at the 
high-school or the junior high-school level. Preparation for vocational life 
for these youth does not, in most instances, imply highly specialized or 
technical training for specific jobs. For many, such preparation may be pro- 
vided by a more generalized training aimed at producing occupational ad- 
justability in a variety of semiskilled or unskilled occupations and by real- 
istic vocational orientation. This conclusion is based upon the fact that 
opportunities in skilled jobs requiring specialized or technical training are 
sharply limited just as are professional, managerial, and executive positions. 
The conclusion also rests upon the correlative fact that the majority of 
to-day’s youth will find employment, if at all, in semiskilled and unskilled 
occupations which require little or no specialized training in school. Never- 
theless, for the latter kinds of jobs good work habits and attitudes, certain 
basic general skills, adaptability to working conditions, and other similar 
qualifications of importance are within the scope of legitimate secondary- 
school objectives. 

4. In secondary schools there should be less of a cleavage between 
liberal or general and vocational education. General education might be 
emphasized at the beginning of secondary education, and vocational prepa- 
ration toward the end for any given group of pupils. Special stress upon 
vocational competence might for a few youth safely be deferred until col- 
lege or even graduate school; but for the large majority it should occur in 
high school; and for some, such preparation must be given, if at all, as far 


down as the junior high-school level. 






5. Many of the youth for whom a new kind of vocational preparation 
is necessary should also be given a kind of general education which is dif- 
ferent from that now provided by traditional academic courses. In other 































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1940 | Some Planks in a Platform for Reconstructng 23 


words, there is as great a need for providing for individual differences in 
the general aspects or common core of secondary education as there is in 
the area of vocational preparation. Preparation for speaking, writing, use 
of leisure time, participation in community life, and so on, should be varied 
on the basis of abilities, interests, and needs. Differentiation in the area 
of general education should also take into account the nature and the re- 
sources of the community and the probable future adult experiences, re- 
sponsibilities, and interests of pupils. 

General education, in the sense that Rainey has defined it as “education 
for the common life,” is needed by all in a democracy. Although the tra- 
ditional academic courses are commonly considered to be in the realm of 
general education, they do not constitute the exclusive means of providing 
it. Youths who are not adapted to the present academic courses cannot be 
adequately provided for simply by transfer from an academic or a general 
to an exclusively vocational curriculum. Neither will the needs of these 
young people generally be well served by offering them merely a com- 
bination of the common type of shop courses and old-line academic courses. 
Merely thinning out or atenuating the latter type of course will not help 
matters very much, 

6. New or radically revised general and vocational curricula and 
courses are necessary to provide educational experiences which are ade- 
quately differentiated for all youth of secondary-school age—or, for that 
matter, even for the two thirds of these youth who are actually attending 
secondary schools to-day. During the past decade or two the secondary 
schools have, whether they wanted it or not, acquired a greatly expanded 
constituency in terms of both total numbers and of numbers and proportion 
of youths of average or low academic ability. Largely because of present 
economic conditions, it will be to the advantage of society to have this con- 
stituency even further expanded. However, the schools must change with 
their changed constituencies in order to accomplish this desired result on 


a sound and educationally fruitful basis. 


7. Although differentiation is essential at the secondary-school level, 
this requirement does not necessarily call for dual or multiple systems of 
education or separate schools for different ability groups. Within the same 
school, within the same subject or core of subjects, and perhaps even in 
single classes, differentiation should be found possible for pupils who fall 
into different groups on the basis of intellectual and nonintellectual abili- 


ties and interests. 

Differentiation does not always necessitate the addition of a great va- 
riety and assortment of new courses. Variation in the specific materials of 
instruction and in teaching methods should provide considerable differen- 








24 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


tiation for pupils of varying abilities and interests even when the curriculum 
is composed of relatively few courses. The variety of courses should, how- 
ever, whenever possible, afford appropriate educational experiences for all 
pupils with special interests, skills, and abilities. 


8. As a basis for grouping or classifying pupils for differentiated cur- 
ricula (or differentiated educaticnal experiences within the same curricu- 


will be required. Even with the best of tests and record systems, groupings 
must always be tentative and flexible, subject to change on the basis of 
new evidence. No rigid, pat formulas for classifying or grouping are ac- 
ceptable. No known method can be applied automatically. Therefore it is 
necessary for administrators, counselors, and teachers to learn through cau- 
tious experimentation and continuous evaluation of results how to group 
pupils wisely and without incurring the risk of doing serious injustice to 
individual pupils. As the schools make progress in this direction, they 
should also find it possible to help pupils themselves to make sounder and 
more realistic self-appraisals of their abilities, opportunities, and needs. 
Parents also need help in understanding the educational needs, aptitudes, 
and limitations of their sons and daughters, as well as sound information 
about the occupational and educational opportunities available. Schools 
should learn to work more closely and effectively with parents to the end 
that the parents may know what the school is trying to accomplish through 
a differentiated program and the bases upon which their children are 
counseled concerning educational experiences and choices. 


9. The schools have a responsibility for utilizing the most effective 
guidance procedures and instruments now available which can help to 
identify and describe the real needs of pupils and to provide reliable and 
valid data for classification or grouping. The discharge of this responsibility 
implies that counselors and teachers must be trained as rapidly as possible 
to understand and to use constructively with proper safeguards the best 
procedures and instruments now at hand. To wait until these aids to 
grouping have been perfected, for fear of making an occasional mistake, 
is to strain at the gnats and swallow the camel. 


10. Reconstruction of the secondary-school program for an expanded 
constituency will call for more effective individual counseling and group 
guidance than is now generally available. As the number of pupils of low 
academic ability and of pupils from homes of very low economic status 
increases, less dependence can be placed upon parents for the guidance of 
youth. The schools’ own program of guidance must become more com- 
prehensive and diversified. 


Guidance, as well as training, should be available to youth for help 





1940 | Some Planks in a Platform for Reconstructing 25 


in dealing with problems and difficulties of the immediate present in ad- 
dition to those which will be met after leaving school. Vocational guidance 
is especially urgent for those whose schooling ends at the secondary level; 
but guidance for vocational life should not constitute the entire guidance 
program, nor should it be isolated from and uncodrdinated with guidance 
for other aspects of living. Here, as in the case of the curriculum, the sharp 
dichotomy which is now frequently found in secondary schools should be 
eliminated. 

11. The guidance work of the secondary schools should also be cor- 
related with the guidance activities of the home, the church, and other 
related social agencies in the community. The need for such correlation is 
especially apparent at present in the area of occupational adjustment. 
Schools should take the initiative in working codperatively with employ- 
ment offices, employers, labor unions, and other community groups which 
have a mutual interest in the occupational adjustment of youth. 


12. New materials of instruction and greater variety and flexibility 
in methods of learning are essential. For nonbookish pupils there should 
probably be less abstract material and reading, but much more visual, audi- 
tory, and concrete materials. These same pupils should have more oppor- 
tunities actually to do things and to participate in codperative group 


projects. There should also be, particularly for the nonbookish group, a 
more active and immediately meaningful correlation between school prac- 
tices and the activities of the adult life of the community. Many informal 
and nontraditional educational experiences—both curriculum and extra- 
curriculum, both within the school and in the community—can be real- 
istically incorporated into the total educational program with beneficial 


results. 

13. A new kind of teacher and a new kind of teaching will be re- 
quired to carry out the revised program for the pupils who do not continue 
their formal training beyond high school, especially in the case of pupils 
of low academic ability. Teachers will be needed who have a genuine in- 
terest in, and understanding of, pupils of this type, that is, teachers who 
can establish effective human relationships with such young people. The 
new kind of teaching, the spirit in which it is carried on, the methods used, 
and the materials of instruction selected, must be sensitively adjusted to 
the” personalities, interests, and abilities of all pupils and not just to those 
who are academically gifted or who are preparing for college. 


Providing the new kind of teacher who will be needed in the recon- 
structed secondary schools is as much a problem of teacher training or 
improvement while in service as it is a problem of the preparation of on- 
coming teachers by the teacher-training institutions. For prompt results, 











26 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [ May 















the inauguration of vitalizing opportunities for the growth and improve- 


men of teachers in service is especially urgent. 





14. Variation, rather than uniformity, in the secondary-school pro- 
gram from community to community and from region to region should 
be encouraged. School programs should be indigenous to the communities 
or areas which they serve. For the reconstruction of the secondary-school 







program, therefore, local and regional experimentation should be relied 





upon heavily. A single type of school program prescribed for a state or for 





the nation as a whole is neither possible nor desirable as an objective. 





15. It is possible that new types of secondary schools, as well as new 
types of curricula, will be found necessary to provide appropriate educa- 
tional experiences for all youth of secondary-school age. Further experi- 
mentation and experience will be necessary, however, before a final de- 


' ais 
cision can be made with assurance. Meanwhile, in the interest both of 








economy and of democratic procedure, every effort should be made to en- 
compass the entire secondary-school program within a single school or 
ganization or system to which all youth of secondary-school age have access. 






a 16. Secondary schools should help provide for a more gradual snift 
[ from school to adult life. For pupils who feel compelled because of eco- 
nomic considerations to leave school before high-school graduation, the 
possibilities of more codperative arrangements with employers and labor 
unions for part-time work and part-time schooling should be explored. Such 







arrangements may prove to be one of several useful methods for meeting 
the new conditions which have resulted from drastic changes in the appren- 
ticeship system in industry and trade and the present scarcity of full-time 







job opportunities for youth in their teens. 





The schools should attempt to keep some connection with all youth 
during their first few years of participation in adult life. Not only would 
young people be helped in making their early postschool adjustments, but 
the schools themselves would obtain data concerning the problems of 
young adults which should be of value in curriculum revision. To accom- 
plish the best possible results, however, schools must acquire greater com- 
petency in counseling youth who have recently left school and are facing 
actual life situations in the adult world. 










17. Secondary education should, as rapidly as funds and facilities 
permit, provide additional training for vocational competence for those who 
have left school when unemployment, change in occupation, or require- 
ments for advancement indicate the need for such training. This will call 
for experimentation with short courses, retraining courses, semiprofessional 
courses, and so on and for the active codperation of high schools, vocational 
schools, and junior colleges: Various devices, such as more complete utiliza- 










wl 


to 

thi 
spe 
pre 
stu 





1940] Some Planks in a Platform for Reconstructing 27 


tion of existing buildings through evening and late afternoon classes, should 
be tried out as methods for holding down the costs of the expanded 


program . 


18. The problem of coérdinating the junior-college program with that 
of the lower secondary schools must be given serious study. The function 
of the junior college in providing terminal training in the areas of both 
general and vocational education should be further emphasized. Semi- 
professional and terminal courses, providing preparation beyond high 
school both for living and for earning a living, should be improved and 
expanded. 


It may be noted that a large proportion of the implications which 
were selected for the foregoing outline are directly or indirectly related to 
occupational adjustment. This particular emphasis here may be justified: 
(1) on the ground that staff members of the American Youth Commission 
and other qualified experts have identified the problem of occupational 
adjustment as perhaps the most immediately vital and urgent one now 
facing American youth; and, (2) by the fact that the report which is to 
follow of visits to secondary schools will also give special emphasis to as- 
pects of the school program which have a bearing upon what may be 
broadly defined as occupational adjustment. It should be clearly understood 
that other kinds of youth problems are recognized by the writer as being 
equally important to attack and, in the long run, equally as vital to the 
welfare of youth. The reports of school visits will, because of this very 
viewpoint and firm conviciton, include numerous comments concerning 


what some schools are doing about certain other kinds of problems. 


Once again, in concluding this section of the report, the writer wishes 
to assert that the implications stated above are not to be considered as any- 
thing more than a partial list, a sampling of implications selected for a 
special purpose. To round out the picture of implications for schools in the 
present conditions of youth the reader is urged to consult the published 


studies which have been referred to in these pages. 

















CHAPTER IV 


Visits to Junior High Schools 


In THE Licut of the foregoing implications for secondary education 
which have been predicated upon present conditions for American youth, 
the attempt will now be made to outline a variety of school practices that 
are being tried out as means for meeting some of the new demands and 
obligations imposed upon secondary schools by the economic and social 
changes of the past decade. This present chapter will be confined to com 
ments concerning a number of the junior high schools which were visited 


by the writer. 

In introducing these school accounts it is necessary to reiterate the 
statement that the major purpose of the school visits was to observe guid- 
ance and curriculum practices which are intended to meet the peculiar 
needs of those youths whose formal education ends at the junior or senior 
high-school level. This will explain the fact that relatively little of what 
is said about particular schools is aimed specifically at school practices 
which have a direct bearing upon the training of pupils who are preparing 
to enter college or pupils, generally, who have sufficient scholastic ability 


and interest to adjust themselves reasonably well to traditional academic 


procedures. 

The two points which the writer wishes to make here, as emphatically 
as possible, are these: (1) that the paucity of comments concerning new 
secondary-school programs and practices which appear to be especially well 
adapted to the special needs of pupils in the higher levels of ability is not 
a matter of indifference or oversight, but rather a case of necessity in view 
of the writer’s specific assignment; and (2) that the strong emphasis that is 
given to curriculum and guidance practices designed especially for pupils 
of lower ability does not warrant the assumption that the writer thinks 
there are no urgent needs for changes in the secondary-school program for 
pupils who are college bound or for those pupils, generally, who are now 


considered to be academically well adjusted. 


Uniove SHop CLassEs AND A Nursery ScHoot Project 
IN THE BAKER Junior Hicu Scoot or Denver, CoLorapo 


This school is serving a part of the city which is very close to the 
bottom economic level in Denver. Very few of the pupils from this school 
will ever get to college; and a very large proportion will not even finish 
high school. The average academic ability is low. Only a handful have 
1.Q.’s, as measured by standard group tests, as high as 105; probably a 
rather large majority have I.Q.’s well below 100. The school building is 


28 













1940} Visits to Junior High Schools 29 


one of the smallest, oldest, and most poorly equipped of the Denver sec- 
ondary schools. It had been overcrowded to the point where it became 
necessary to eliminate the ninth graders by sending them to one of the 
senior high schools. The school does not have much money to spend on 
equipment, shop facilities, and the like. 

In this situation, which would lead many schoolmen to become quite 
discouraged, the faculty, under the able and effective leadership of their 
principal, George E. Hook, appears to be making steady and encouraging 
progress in constructing an educational program that is realistically adapted 
to the abilities and needs of its particular pupils. One finds evidence of this 
progress in both the vocational and general education courses, although it 
is fortunately true that there seem to be no hard and fast distinctions made 
between book learning and other types of educational experiences. 


A visit was made to a large room which serves as the shop for the 
school. Here there was no complicated and expensive power machinery, 
but there were many work benches of an ordinary type, the simpler types 
of hand tools, a barber chair, a shoe-shining outfit, laundry tubs, and an 
ironing board. The teacher in charge of the class, who has the same boys 
also for a course in personal problems, is concentrating on the development 
of manual skill in the handling of commonly used hand tools (e.g. saw, 
hammer, plane, chisel, pliers, etc.) and the construction of useful articles 
from kinds of inexpensive materials which might be available even to 
people of low economic status. Several boys were constructing very sturdy 
and presentable chairs, which were destined for actual use in their homes, 
from rough lumber and old, abandoned automobile seats. Another group 
was making surprisingly attractive pieces of furniture, such as bookcases 
and dressing tables, from orange crates and other kinds of discarded boxes. 
The boys were working with enthusiasm and with apparent pride in the 
fact that their products had utility, as well as being attractive in appear- 
ance. The teacher remarked that the parents of the boys have been quick 
to appreciate the school’s attempt indirectly to do something constructive 
for the home, and that a welcome by-product of the shopwork has been an 
increased parent interest in and appreciation of the school program. The 
boys, meanwhile, are acquiring interests, manual skills, and good work 
attitudes which are preparing them for occupational adjustment when they 

leave school. 
. Boys in this school have very little pocket money even for the so-called 
necessities of life, such as haircuts, soap, suits, shoes, and shirts. Further- 
more, many come from homes where the parents pay very little attention 
to the personal appearance and cleanliness of their children. To develop 
pride in personal appearance and to provide the means of achieving neat- 


















[May 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


30 





ness and cleanliness, the shop teachers have installed at very small cost a 
used barber chair and the other facilities previously described. As a part 
of the shopwork, boys learn to cut each other’s hair, press their trousers, 
launder their shirts, and shine shoes. Activity along these lines is especially 
keen and well motivated for a day or two preceding school parties! Both 
the principal and two of the counselors testified that the social life of the 
school has been markedly improved, and that the social adjustment of many 
of the crudest boys has been greatly facilitated, by the shop program. Here 
is an interesting example of integration of shopwork and social life. Such 
outcomes, however, are not automatically obtained by the installation of 
certain kinds of equipment. Skillful teaching by a teacher who can win 
the confidence and respect of the boys is absolutely essential. It was inter- 
esting to note in the shop at Baker Junior High School that the teacher 
knew all the boys and their home backgrounds intimately, and that he 
conducted the class on a very friendly and informal basis. From his con- 
tacts with the boys in the class one could see that he was functioning just 
as much as an individual counselor as he was as a teacher. Other courses 
which are likewise planned to meet the needs of low ability pupils, both 
boys and girls, include classes in junior business and remedial reading. 


For a group of girls of very limited ability, a very interesting nursery- 
school project has been inaugurated. The nursery-school is located in one 
fairly large room from which the regular classroom equipment has been 
removed. To this room during certain hours of the afternoon the girls 
bring their small brothers and sisters or young neighbor children. The 
pupils, under supervision, learn how to care for small children, acquire 
habits of cleanliness and neatness, and develop numerous useful skills 
which can be employed at home or in working out. All the furniture in 
the nursery school was made by boys in the school shop. The furniture in- 
cludes very attractive little chairs made from orange crates, tables, cup- 
boards, and benches. The boys have also made a variety of toys and games, 
such as simple blocks and puzzles from ordinary scrap wood. Girls who 
are in home economics have contributed other articles, such as decorations 
of various kinds and colorful mats (with ordinary wrapping paper as the 
base) on which the small children lie during their rest period. The girls in 
this class, all of whom are very poor readers and slow learners in academic 
subjects, were participating in the various activities with apparent pride 
and enthusiasm. Not only are these girls acquiring skills and attitudes 
which will be valuable later on jobs or in homes, but at the same time the 
small children who are brought into the program and their mothers are 
also benefited. The relationship between the girls and the instructor who 


supervises them is very informal and friendly. Thus in this class, as in 








1940] Visits to Junior High Schools 31 


the case of the boys’ shop course, counseling and teaching have become 
practically synonymous. 

By chance it happened that at the same time the nursery school was 
in operation, the principal of the school was having a meeting with the 
mothers of the girls and the mothers of the small children who were en- 
gaged in the nursery-school program. Both groups of mothers had a natural 
personal interest in the nursery-school project, and they expressed freely 
their appreciation of what the school was doing for the children. They 
also came forward with constructive ideas for improving the program. 
Such a meeting, devoted to the discussion of questions which were of di- 
rect and specific interest to the parents, seemed to the writer to be fostering 
a kind of school-parent relationship which is mutually profitable. 


The traditional courses in English and social studies have been largely 
supplanted in this school by a double-period, core course which is called 
Community Living. The major objective of this course is, as the name 
implies, to prepare pupils for postschool life in the sort of community in 
which they will live. A great deal of stress is placed upon simple, practical 
projects which involve physical activity, group discussion, field trips, and 
handicrafts, as well as reading and writing. In one class the writer found 
the students working on scrapbooks in the preparation of which ample 
opportunity was given for the use of visual materials for the purpose of 
illustration and decoration. The classroom, old and dingy though it was, 
was equipped with bookcases filled with reading materials which had 
been carefully chosen to fit the interests and abilities of slow learners. 
On the walls were displayed numerous pictures, simple charts, and 
samples of work done by the pupils. The teacher in this class told 
the writer that with some groups she finds it necessary to use very 
unorthodox practices to stimulate interest in reading. For example, in 
one class she found it necessary to start with funny papers and scrap- 
books of pictures and cartoons from the papers. She discovered that 
some of the pupils in the class did not even have an opportunity to see 
funny papers at home. Having them available at school not only delighted 
them, but also provided a strong motivation for reading on the part of 
these very dull pupils. On the other hand, for the small number of pupils 
whose scholastic ability and interest is sufficient to warrant their prepa- 
Tation for academic courses in high school—or in rare instances even for 
college work—the Community Living course is very considerably upgraded. 
These abler pupils, incidentally, also have the opportunity to study a for- 
eign language and other subjects which will prepare them to fit into the 


academic high-school curriculum. 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals | May 


The first period of the school day, from half past eight to nine in the 
morning, is set aside as an activity period for the pupils and as a cur- 
riculum-planning period for the teachers. The activities in which the pupils 
engage are considered an integral part of the total educational program, 
and they provide several kinds of nonacademic experiences for the pupil. 
One day a week is used for the showing of movies and slides. On other days 
the activities include class meetings, student council meetings, club meet- 
ings, eorrective gym, and sports. Another kind of nonacademic experience 
which is thought to be very successful is the field trip. Frequent visits are 
made by groups of the pupils to industrial establishments, museums, and 
other places of interest throughout the city. Such trips are greatly facilitated 
in Denver by the work of the Department of Special School Services.’ 
This new school agency serves as a central clearinghouse for ficld trips, 
completes the preliminary arrangements for the schools, and provides 
school buses for transportation. 


It is the writer’s opinion that the practices which have been described 
have produced an excellent school morale and a degree of interest and en- 
thusiasm which are not often found among pupils of such low scholastic 
ability when they are held to a strictly conventional school program. The 
administration of this school is flexible and thoroughly democratic in na- 
ture. Teachers are not merely permitted but rather actively encouraged to 
experiment with methods and curriculum innovations which will make the 
school program more meaningful and attractive to the pupils. This kind 
of administrative procedure has apparently resulted in much creative effort 
and very good morale on the part of the teachers, 


CURRICULUM ADAPTATIONS AND Part-TIME Joss FOR UNDERPRIVILEGED YOUTH 
IN THE Lowe.t Junior Hich ScHoot or Tutsa, OKLAHOMA 


The student body of this school is’ rather similar to that of the Baker 
Junior High School of Denver; and T. H. Broad,’ principal of Lowell 
Junior High School, appears to have an educational viewpoint and a 
philosophy of administration which are rather similar to those which have 
been ascribed to Mr. Hook, principal of the Baker Junior High School. 
Lowell Junior High School draws most of its pupils from families of 
very limited financial resources; many fathers are unskilled laborers; many 
others are on relief. The average scholastic ability of the pupils is low; and 
a fair proportion have [.Q.’s below 80. Probably not more than one or 
two out of a hundred of these children will go to college, and a large per- 
centage of them will drop out of school at age sixteen, Because of these 
facts, Broad believes that the school’s main task is to give the pupils experi- 


1See page 78 for further information concerning this department. 
“Mr. Broad has recently been appointed principal of the Daniel Webster High School of Tulsa. 





1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 33 


ences and training that will prepare them realistically for the kinds ot 
postschool adjustments they will nave to make. 

Approximately one half of the scheduled classes are nonacademic, 
e.g. art, foods, metals, clothing, shop, music, physical education, orchestra. 
Ihe academic work is chiefly concentrated in the general education 
courses which take up two of the six daily periods. There are a few special 
English and social studies sections, some science classes, and a relatively small 
number of mathematics classes, which are primarily for the more able 
pupils. The double-period general education course, as well as all other 
academic subjects, are very flexibly administered as to both content and 
method. The teachers are encouraged and expected to exercise initiative in 
adapting both content and method to the aptitudes and needs of their 


various groups, 


Ability grouping is practiced in the general education courses and in 
the other academic subjects. To a more limited extent such grouping also 
occurs in all of the nonacademic subjects, except music and physical educa- 
tion. In most of the academic courses provision is made for five different 
groups, representing roughly five levels of academic and reading ability. 


One ot the academic classes visited was a 7-5 (lowest ability) class in 
science. The chief emphasis in this science course is on health education. 
In this 7-5 group there is a very limited amount of reading; and the 
materials selected are at the third or fourth grade level of reading ability. 
Each pupil keeps a health scrapbook. One interesting feature of this 
scrapbook is a drawing of upper and lower teeth on which the teacher 
marks cavities that she detects during frequent inspection of the children’s 
teeth. The child who is found to have a cavity is asked to show his parents 
the drawing. The science teacher and the principal are always glad to 
help parents arrange for inexpensive or, if need be, free dental service. 
It and when the child receives the proper dental care, the black mark on 
the drawing is erased. The teacher has to work with the 7-5 youngsters on 
a very elementary basis, because these children would have very short 
attention spans if they were forced to work on conventional science 
materials, which would be very difficult and lacking in interest for them. 
Some of the abler groups in science have produced scrapbooks in which 
one finds good writing, as well as well-selected materials from various 
sources and well-drawn illustrations. These scrapbooks, in which the pupils 
tike great pride, are filed in shelves at the back of the room. Children 
who have shown special interest and skill in taxidermy have stuffed and 
mounted the birds and small mammals which are on display in this science 
classroom. 

A visit was made to one of the nonacademic courses, a class in metals. 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


The controlling objectives here are to give the pupils a feeling for handling 
tools, simple machines, and several kinds of metals and to develop self- 
responsibility and the ability to work with others in a situation which 
simulates actual shop conditions. Pupils alternate in filling certain straw 
boss jobs, e.g., the foreman in charge of cleaning up at the end of the 
class and the person in charge of the tool and supply room. Highly skilled 
workmanship is not stressed. The pupils in this class—all boys in this 
case, although girls are admitted to some shop classes—appeared to be 
working industriously on a variety of projects. The pupils came to the 
teacher when they felt the need for directions in much the same way as 
a workman might go to a shop foreman in an industria! plant; and the 
teacher treated them much as an enlightened and competent shop foreman 
might have done. At the end of the class period the pupil in charge of 
the clean-up work, although he had been assigned to the job for the first 
time on this day, was responsible and quite efficient in handling the direc- 
tion of the work. 

A very interesting feature of the school program at Lowell Junior 
High School (as well as at all other Tulsa secondary schools) is a 
teacher conterence period from a quarter past eight to nine every morning 
at the beginning of the day. Only physical education and music classes 
are scheduled at this period. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 
most of the teachers are free to meet by grades for curriculum planning 
and conferences on pupil problems. On Tuesdays the teachers serve as 
sponsors for various clubs in which participation by the pupils is on an 
optional basis. On Thursdays almost all of the teachers are free to call 


in pupils for individual conferences. Thus, although tie counseling work 


is a primary responsibility of the teachers of the general education course, 
all teachers are expected to participate actively in guidance work and 
are given some time for it. The principal also devotes a great deal of 
time to special counseling problems which are referred to him by teachers. 
A continuous effort is made to keep in very close touch with parents, 
because the codperation of the parents is felt to be vital to many aspects 
of the school program. Two of the teachers have one period a day each for 
home visitation; and parents are always made to feel welcome when they 
visit the school. 

The principal of this school has been keenly aware of the grave 
financial difficulties which are being experienced by the families of many 
of the pupils. Consequently, every possible effort is made to provide 
financial assistance in all cases where the need is pressing. These pupils 
are not pampered, however. For example, pupils who cannot afford to 
bring or buy their lunches are not eligible for free lunches (which are 
provided by funds donated by private citizens) unless they have attended 





1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 35 


school the entire day before. Arrangements have also been made to permit 
pupils to earn money by working as caddies, handbill distributors, errand 


boys, and so on, without becoming involved in charges of truancy. In 
other words, the available odd jobs are equitably distributed among the 
pupils and are scheduled, in effect, as an integral part of the educational 
program of the pupils. Those who are excused from class for this re- 
munerative work are held strictly accountable for reporting to work at 
the specified hours and for giving satisfactien to the employer. So important 
are the meager earnings of the pupils from these jobs that the principal has 
actually taken the initiative in promoting such work opportunities and in 
making arrangements with prospective employers. 


FosrerinG INTERRACIAL AMITY IN THE Herron Hitt Junior Hicu 
ScHoot oF PirtspuRGH, PENNSYLVANIA 


This school has had the task of solving difficult problems in inter- 
racial relationships, as well as the job of modifying its program to provide 
suitable experiences for an underprivileged student body of low average 
ability. Approximately 72 per cent of the pupils are Negroes; and at 
one time in the past conflict between whites and Negroes was a serious 
problem. Now the relationships between the two groups is characterized 
generally by friendliness, tolerance, and fair play. The school building itself 
is impressively located on the top of a hill in one of the poorest residential 
districts of the city. The building is comparatively new and _ provides 
modern facilities for both academic and shop courses. 


The writer had an opportunity to talk with seven or eight of the 
fifty-four teachers. Judging from this sampling of the faculty, the teaching 
staff is remarkable in several ways. A large proportion of the teachers 
have apparently served in this district by choice for a long period of 
years, and they have taken the trouble to become intimately acquainted 
with the neighborhood environment and with the families of the pupils. 
All of the teachers who were met gave evidence of a cheerful and vigorous 
zest for their work and a sympathetic, yet realistic, understanding of the 
types of pupils which the school serves. In general, the atmosphere of the 
school impressed one as being happy, invigorating, and purposeful. 


One of the school practices which, though not an uncommon one, 
appears to play an especially important part in this school in promoting 
god morale and in establishing fine human relationships, both among 
the pupils and between the pupils and the teachers, is the incorporation of 
the student activity program into the regular curriculum. An _ activity 
period three times a week is a part of the regular schedule of classes. One 
of the teachers, a lively and enthusiastic young man, spends full time on the 
organization and direction of the activity period. At present, more than 



















[ May 


56 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 





thirty activities (or clubs, as they are usually called) are functioning. The 
great variety of interests served is suggested by the names of the clubs. 
Examples are as follows: Reading, Motion Picture, Traffic, Foremen, 
Leaders, Girl Reserves, Swimming, String Orchestra, Dramatics, Costumes, 
Puppets, Stamps, Science, Craft, and Drafting. During the activity period 
the following two clubs were visited by the writer: 

(1) Girls’ Mechanical Club—A group of fifteen to twenty girls, pre- 
dominantly Negro, making simple objects (e.g., jewel boxes) of wood 
under the supervision of one of the several shop teachers. Considerable 
enthusiasm and wide grins exposing gleaming teeth accompanied awkward 
saw and hammer wielding. 

(2) Travel Club—A cheertul group of thirty or more, five-sixths 
Negro and practically all boys. A small Negro lad was solemnly and 
charmingly relating some tales his father, a veteran, had told him about 
the World War. The children had just seen some slides of France and 
Belgium during and following the war. The experiences of relatives and 
friends during the war made these countries seem more real and helped 
to dramatize the travel study. A large and colorful map was referred to 
frequently, with the boys vying for the honor of pointing out places of 
interest. During the free discussion, the teacher, who handled the group 
with rare skill, took advantage of opportunities to bring in references to 
recent map changes and present conflicts in Europe. 

A visit was also made to a ninth grade social studies class. The pupil 
chairman, a Negro boy, took charge of the meeting which opens the class. 
The secretary read the minutes and various committee chairmen made 
reports on such topics as current events, athletic contests, and social events. 
Several pupil volunteers presented newspaper clippings which had interested 
them. Altogether, the class meeting was a creditable performance and 
was characterized by a surprising degree of dignity and the active partici- 
pation of almost every pupil. 

Another classroom visited was one which was being used by an 
able and experienced teacher who has charge of a special group (fifteen 
or sixteen) of orthogenic and problem girls. The teacher has these pupils 
(all Negroes) for all their general education training, and she is also the 
special counselor for these girls. For each pupil, the teacher has made a 
case study as a tasis for diagnosis and the treatment of individual problems. 
She is not entirely satisfied with the results obtained in working with the 
girls; she believes that she had much better success with a group of boys 
of this type last year. However, after observing the girls and after hearing 
about the home conditions of several of them, the writer wondered how 


the teacher managed to keep the girls in school at all. Actually, the 









May 


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1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 37 


attendance record of the girls for this year has been very good; whereas 
previously nearly every one of them had been a truancy case. 

Almost all of the teachers are actively engaged in guidance. So effective 
is their work, according to the full-time counselor, that he is free to spend 
all of his time on testing and on a limited number of the more acute 
problem cases. According to statements received from the principal, Mr. 
Rheinhart, and several teachers, subject matter and method have been 
modified freely in all courses to meet the special needs of the pupils, an 
overwhelming majority of whom will never get beyond high-school gradua- 


tion at best. What was seen in classes and discovered in conversation with 


teachers seemed to substantiate these claims. 


GuIDANCE Practices AND ABILITY GROUPING IN THE MAPLEWoop 
New Jersey Junior Hicu Scuoor 


This junior high school (grades 7 through 9) has an enrollment of 
slightly more than nine hundred pupils. Most of the pupils come from 
upper middle-class families, but there are a number of children whose 
fathers are workers in the industrial plants in and around Maplewood. 
A small proportion of the pupils are from families which are on relief. 
The 1.Q.’s of the pupils range roughly from 70 to 145, with a median 
of approximately 110, 

The principal of this school, Ross O. Runnels, has a very interesting 
point of view with respect to secondary-school administration. The basic 
tenets of his philosophy apparently include these: (1) that the school should 
be, above everything else, a pleasant, happy place both for teachers and 
pupils; (2) that the school should be closely linked to the total life of 
the community, rather than an institution which tends to isolate teachers 
and pupils from the community life; and (3) that one of the principal 
functions of the chief administrator is to foster conditions of work and 
a school atmosphere which will give teachers a sense of freedom to experi- 
ment and to initiate and a sense of responsibility. Dr. Runnels, therefore, 
exercises great care in the selection of a new teacher; but once the selec- 
tion is made, he “turns the teacher loose” to do the job as the teacher 
thinks best, with a minimum amount of formal supervision or direction 
from the principal. 

Dr. Runnels has an interesting definition of guidance, the gist of 
which is that guidance consists of helping a young person to formulate 
objectives which are for him dynamic and reasonable (i.e., within the scope 
of his abilities and interests). It seemed to the writer that Dr. Runnels 
has been quite successful in imparting this viewpoint to his teachers. 
There are approximately thirty teachers in the school; and during the day, 
at lunch and in wandering around the building, the writer must have 















[| May 





Nauonal Association of Secondary-School Principals 


talked with at least half of the teachers in the school about their attitudes 
toward guidance and their functions in the guidance program. Almost 
without exception, the teachers referred to individual pupils in whom 
they were interested from a counseling point of view. In many of these 
cases the problems of the pupils were discussed in terms of tne need for 
helping them to find stimulating objectives within the range of their 
abilities and interests. 

This is a school where the home-room teachers have been assigned 
several definite responsibilities. The home-room teachers, for example, 
are responsible for keeping up the cumulative record forms, even though 
the pupil folders are ordinarily kept in the central office. All of the data 
which are recorded on the cumulative records in the Junior High School 
are entered by the home-room teachers, except the inielligence test scores, 
which are recorded by the psychologist in the district’s child guidance 
department. In several typical folders the following materials were found: 
a picture, a kindergarten report, a record of annual conferences for grades 
7 through 9, and two forms which were cumulative from the first grade 
through the senior high school. These latter two forms provided sum- 
maries of tests and measurements and scholarship records on one form, 
and social and health history and personality comments on the other form. 
For students in the eighth grade the typical record includes five or six 
1.Q.’s (one of these an individually administered Binet) and the results 
of six or seven standardized achievement tests. Although the cumulative 
records were not perhaps as elaborate or as professional in appearance 
as some of the widely used standardized record forms, the data recorded 
on them appeared to be ample and decidedly useful for diagnosis and 
counseling. 

Although the principal wants all teachers to be good counselors and 
assigns specific counseling functions to the home-room teachers, the school 
also has counseling specialists whose job it is to supplement the guidance 
activities of the classroom and home-room teachers. For each of the three 
grades there is a specially qualified teacher known as a guide, who spends 
approximately half time on guidance work. The seventh grade guide 
keeps in close touch with the elementary schools and has special responsi- 
bility for the orientation of the entering seventh graders. She gets a great 
deal of information about the children before they come to the Junior 
High School, and she keeps an eye on the potential problem cases through- 
out the year. Much of her work is carried on through the seventh grade 
home-room teachers, for whom she acts as a kind of leader or chairman. 
The ninth grade guide has as one of her special responsibilities the pre- 
high-school counseling of the ninth graders." 


*For comments concerning the high school to which these pupils are transferred, see pages 





58-61. 





ba 





1940] Visits to Junior High Schools 39 
One responsibility which is common to all of the guides is the place- 
ment or sectioning of pupils. Differentiation in terms of content and teach- 
ing method is made possible through classification of pupils into A, B, 
and C groups. Then there is further differentiation, chiefly in the ninth 
grade, on the basis of the elective subjects which are recommended for 
pupils of varying ability. In the assignments which are made to the A, 
B, and C groups the guides put the greatest weight on the factor of ability, 
as measured by I. Q.’s and achievement test results. However, there are 
other factors, such as social maturity, congeniality, age, and personality, 
which are also taken into account in arriving at decisions in individual cases. 
The classification of the pupils is always considered tentative, and changes 
to higher or lower groups are made whenever there is good evidence in 
favor of such action. It should be noted that the counseling and classifica- 
tion of pupils are carried on more in relation to future educational goals 
than in relation to highly specific vocational goals. It is believed that 
vocational opportunities or choices will be largely determined or at least 
partially circumscribed by the future educational experiences of the young 
people. It is felt that the junior high school has made marked progress in 
the accurate determination of the pupils’ potentialities for success in the 
available types of educational training, but that the means are still lacking 
for making an equally sound appraisal at the junior high-school level of 
fitness for the confusingly large number of occupational alternatives which 
it might be necessary to consider. In other words, if the junior high school 
does a good job of differentiating pupils on the basis of present and future 
educational experiences and plans, the assumption is that it has done about 
all that can be accomplished at that level. Presumably, if the junior high 
school has done its job well, the high school (in a community where 
practically all the young people enter high school) can continue the edu- 
cational differentiation and begin to point pupils, through the provision 
of a wide variety of offerings in both general and vocational education, 
toward more specific vocational goals. 

It may be added that for cases requiring unusually skillful and expert 
handling, the school is free to call upon the services of the school district’s 
child guidance department. This department, in addition to doing the 

_intelligence testing for the entire South Orange-Maplewood school district, 
provides the services of a psychiatrist and two psychologists for school 
consultation and treatment of individual cases. The services of these 
experts are called upon for assistance in the training of the school’s teachers 
and counselors, as well as for the individual counseling of pupils who are 


badly maladjusted. 



























| May 





4) National Association of Secondary-School Principals 
DireERENTIAL TREATMENT OF Pupits of Wipety VARYING ABILITY IN THE 


Horace Mann Lower Division Hicu Scroor or Sart Lake Crry, Utan 


Utah has had compulsory school attendance to age eighteen or gradu- 
ation from high school since 1919. Consequently, the secondary schools 
of Salt Lake City have, for a period of twenty years, been forced to face 
the problem of adjusting the school program to the abilities and needs of 
all the youth of a large community, including those of very limited 
scholastic ability.’ The schools of Salt Lake City are organized on a 6-1-2-2 
hasis—i.e., six elementary grades, an articulating unit which normally re- 
quires one year, and lower and upper division high schools of two years 
each. The articulating unit is sometimes provided for in connection with 
an elementary school and sometimes in connection with a lower division 
high school. At the Horace Mann Lower Division High School, pupils 
come directly from elementary school and are placed in an articulating unit 
for a year or, in the case of some of the most retarded pupils, for a longer 
time. 

In the articulating unit at this school, pupils normally have a program 
which includes English, social studies, natural science, mathematics, trans- 
portation (boys only), homemaking (girls only), physical education, and 
music (voice or instrumental). There is no arbitrarily set method of 
sectioning or grouping, but there are slow classes whenever they are re- 
quired for retarded students, and special classes for pupils of exceedingly 
limited ability. The writer saw good work being done with a special class 
in English, and also with a boys’ class in general shop where very simple, 
practical, manual skills were being developed. The programs of pupils 
in special classes are flexibly arranged; one pupil may be in special classes 
most of the time and another for only one or two periods a day, depending 
in each case on what benefits the pupil can gain from attending other 
classes. Special and retarded children are brought into contact with the 
other children as much as possible both in classrooms and in pupil activ- 
ities to avoid feelings of segregation and inferiority. Most of the slow 
pupils are eventually passed along to the lower division high school, then 
on to the upper division, with individual counseling and special programs 
fitted to their needs all along the line. 

In the first year of the lower division high school, elective courses are 
introduced. Programs are made out on the basis of thorough group study 
of alternatives and possibilities, supplemented by extensive individual 
counseling. The election of mathematics may mean either arithmetic or 


algebra, depending upon the pupil involved. Commercial courses and 


other semi-occupational or “tryout” courses, become available. A relatively 





*PFor additional comments concerning Salt Lake City Schools, see pages 94-96. 








1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 41 


small proportion of pupils in this school are headed for college; conse- 
quently, college requirements may be safely ignored in most cases as a 
vital factor in the selection of electives. On the other hand, the I.Q.’s of the 
pupils spread out over a large range; and the interests of the very able 
ones are not neglected in terms of the kinds of courses made available to 
them. 

Content in the required courses of English and social studies is 
flexibly arranged. Within a single English class (thirty to thirty-five stu- 
dents) there were three sets of assignments or projects (called simply group 
one, two, and three) of varying degrees of difficulty. Thus a kind of 
ability grouping was made within the class. Teachers of English and 
social studies courses frequently introduce projects involving handicrafts, 
creative art, and other types of nonlinguistic activities to supplement the 
reading and writing. For slow readers especially, such projects, when 
related to reading materials which are chosen on the basis of the students’ 
abilities and special interests, seem to be effective in motivating reading. 
In one English class, for example, the pupils were found working on a 
unit on basketball. Model basketball courts (complete with players, ball, 
and referee) had been cleverly constructed from pipe cleaners, clay, and 
various other materials. The pupils were reading all kinds of references 
related directly or indirectly to basketball, including stories which drama- 
tized the good qualities associated with sportsmanship, team play, and so on. 

Visual aids to learning, many of them student made, were found in 
almost every classroom. In one social science class there was a fine display 
of charts, pictures, and cartoons, to illustrate various projects; e.g., the 
child’s relationship to the home, the government of the city. “The 
passage of a bill” through the legislature had been amusingly illustrated by 
a series of perhaps fifty cartoons. Each of these drawings had been worked 
out by a student committee and represented one step in the passage of a 
bill through Senate and House. The teacher of this class said that even 
her slowest pupils, after working on the committees and studying the 
cartoons, passed a fairly stiff objective test on this project. 

The natural science teacher has one of the best amateur collections of 
fossils the writer has ever seen. It fills many large cases at one end of a 
large room. The teacher has also made a fine collection of bird and animal 
pictures and of specimens of bird and beast which she has mounted herself. 
“All of these concrete objects are utilized extensively in the classroom teach- 
ing of natural science. The principal of the school, Miss Arbuckle, said 
that even the nonbookish pupils become enthusiastic about the natural 
science courses, and that discipline problems in the science classes (with 


forty or more pupils per class) are practically unknown. 

















[May 


National Association of Secondary-School Principals 





In talking with the principal and approximately a dozen of the 
teachers, the writer was impressed time and time again by the evidences 
he found of keen awareness of the practical implications of individual 
differences in a secondary-school program and of sympathetic, yet realistic, 
attitudes toward the problems of the slow learners. Among both teachers 
and pupils the writer sensed a spirit of tolerance and friendliness—and 
a genuine kind of democratic attitude toward fellow beings—which enabled 
young people representing several races, many levels of ability, and various 
secioeconomic levels to live pleasantly and harmoniously together in the 
school community while partaking of rather widely differentiated educa- 


tional experiences. 


CoUNSELING ProcEepURES AND Core Courses IN THE SOUTH PASADENA, 
CairornNiA, JUNIOR HicH ScHOOL 


One of the interesting devices used in this school to achieve improved 
counseling, coérdination of counseling services, and the sensitizing of 
teachers to the counseling point of view is called the counseling clinic. Any 
teacher, counselor, or administrative officer may “call a clinic” on any pupil 
who appears to be maladjusted in any way. The teachers of the pupil, 
the counselor, the assistant principal, and any others who may be directly 
concerned attend the clinic and bring to it whatever recorded data they 
possess, as well as their unrecorded knowledge of the young person. Such 
clinics have been held with increasing frequency and, seemingly, with 
beneficial results fer both pupils and teachers. 

The mental hygiene approach characterizes the guidance program, 
and much more attention is given to problems of social and emotional 
adjustment and of academic orientation than to problems of occupational 
purposes or adjustments. The viewpoint which seems to be held is that 
intensive vocational counseling and organized courses in occupations would 
not be of much value to these particular junior high school boys and 
girls. It should be noted, however, that the pupils in this school are a 
selected (i. e., high-ability) group. Practically all of them are expected to 
finish high school; and an exceptionally high proportion will eventually 
enter college. 

Teachers of the core course, a combined English-social studies course, 
have a special responsibility for knowing and counseling individuals, be- 
cause they have their pupils for double periods each day. Three English- 
social studies classes were visited. Brief comments on each of them are 


summarized as follows: 


(1) First Class 
The pupils were finishing up a unit on the citrus fruit industry. The 

























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1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 43 


classroom situation was informal and natural, yet businesslike and orderly. 
Pupils moved around freely to consult references or the teacher. The 
writer talked with two pupils who did a good job of explaining their 
projects. He also looked over some of the written work dealing with the 
citrus fruit unit and found it to be of excellent quality. One girl interested 
in music had composed an original song. All of the pupils had done some 


drawing in connection with the unit. 


The teacher of this class is one of the older members of the teaching 
stafl, with many years of successful teaching behind her. She is a 
stickler for thorough work; yet, at the same time, her relationships with the 
pupils are friendly and informal. She seemed to know intimately the 
capacities and limitations of the young people, and to be able to vary her 
expectations of achievement in accordance with her knowledge of these 
individual differences. It appears to the writer that this teacher demon- 
strated in her practice that insistence upon high standards of achievement 
need not be incompatible with informality in the classroom or with variety 


and flexibility in teaching methods. 


(2) Second Class 

In this class the teacher was having individual conferences (stressing 
self-evaluation) on semester reports which had been prepared for presen- 
tation to parents. Meanwhile the pupils were carrying on various in- 
dividual and group projects. Several of the boys were helping to install 
built-in pieces of furniture which had been designed and constructed by 
members of the class. Naturally, there was a great deal of noise and con- 


fusion, but everyone seemed to be busy and unperturbed by the racket. 


(3) Third Class 

The teacher of this class is a shop teacher who had asked to be allowed 
to teach one section of English-social studies. He appeared to be doing 
a remarkably good job. At any rate he has certainly displayed resource- 
fulness and ingenuity in arousing enthusiastic pupil interest in the study 
of the English grammar, usage, and composition. One of the devices 


employed was the preparation of a book by the pupils to dramatize and 


animate correct usage and grammar through a series of dialogues and 
graphic illustrations (i.e, wood block prints). This book, which was nearing 
completion, had been inspired by Grammar Can Be Fun by the author of 
Ferdinand. 


The assistant principal of this school, Edwin C. Morgenroth, gave the 
writer a copy of a mimeographed student handbook entitled, “I Go to 
Junior High,” which has been a very useful aid in the program of guidance. 
This handbook, written in a friendly and informal style which appeals 























44 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





to the youngsters, explains the Constitution of the student body, the 
junior high-school courses of study, the school club program, and the 
sources of information concerning the kinds of questions that new pupils 
are likely to run up against. The club program, incidentally, includes 
all of the pupils; and periods for club meetings are scheduled just like 
any of the academic classes. At the beginning of the school year, each pupil 
enrolls in a club of his own choosing for a period of approximately nine 
weeks. At the end of each nine-week period changes in club membership 
are made. Most of the teachers in the school serve as sponsors for club 
activities in which they have special interests and for which they have 
special qualifications. The variety of interests served is indicated by the 
following sampling of the names of clubs: Automobile, Cartoon, Carto- 
graphers, Collectors, Crafts, Creative Art, Players, Puppets, Stage Crew, 
Fencing, Knitting, Choir, Garden, Modern Airplanes, Photography, Read- 
ing, Salesmanship, Sewing, Stamp Collectors, Telescope, Travel, Coins, 
and Weaving. It is felt that the club program has been unusually success- 
ful, not only in broadening student interests, encouraging worth-while 
hobbies, and aiding in the social adjustment of many of the more timid 
youngsters, but also in fostering happy, friendly, and effective human rela- 


tions between pupils and teachers. 





















OccuPpATIONAL CLAssEs FoR Pupits or Very Low Asiuity 1n THE NicHotas 
Juntor Hicu Scuoot or Mt. Vernon, New York 






The school has an enrollment of approximately eight hundred and 
seventy pupils distributed throughout four grades (grades 7 through 10). 
The tenth grade is included in the Junior High School because the one 
Senior High School in Mount Vernon is too overcrowded to take care of 
all tenth graders. Approximately 65 to 70 per cent of the pupils are of 
Italian extraction. The parents of these young people are comparatively 
recent immigrants from Southern Italy. Most of these parents come from 
peasant stock; many of them are uneducated, even illiterate; the bulk of 
the fathers are on relief or engaged in unskilled labor jobs. Almost all 
of these Italian families may be classified as very poor. The children 
average low in scholastic ability. A large proportion have 1.Q.’s below 90, 


and a number are as low as 50. 














Mr. Townsend, the principal, and his staff have long been aware that 
the traditional academic curriculum does not meet the needs of a majority 
of the pupils in this school. A number of years ago, therefore, the academic 
curriculum was supplemented by curricula, designated as commercial and 
general, in which drastic modifications were made for the benefit of 
pupils of lower ability. After the full effects of the depression had been 
felt, it was found that further differentiation was necessary to take care of 
















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ee = FF RUN OES CT 


al 


1940] Visits to Junior High Schools 45 


certain of the boys and girls who were at the very bottom in terms of 
ability—roughly, a group ranging from 50 to 85 I.Q. Accordingly, in 
September, 1935, the school inaugurated a fourth curriculum, which was 
designated by the term occupational classes. Not all of the pupils in the 
lowest ability group, however, have been placed in these classes. Those 
who have made satisfactory progress and have a strong interest in the 
commercial or general curricula are permitted to remain in them. The 
first occupational classes were for boys only, but now there are classes for 
both boys and girls. At present, there are more than fifty pupils enrolled in 
the occupational classes. For pupils in this group a diploma is given at the 
end of the tenth grade, but the pupils are not entitled to enter high school. 


The need for a special course of this kind and the objectives of the 
course are indicated in the following three paragraphs which are quoted 
from a mimeographed report prepared by the principal of the school: 


The immediate need for such classes came out of the acute economic con- 
litions which have been felt in this school district since the latter part of 
the year 1931. Previous to this time it was quite possible for our boys and 
girls, who were not especially interested in our conventional school work, 
to find jobs and to leave school. During the last few years, however, this has 
been impossible and in accordance with the State law, which has been con- 
sistently raising the compulsory school age, pupils have been required to re- 
main in school often much against their will. 

Many of the pupils of our school come from illiterate parents born in 
Southern Italy of the peasant class. Naturally their transmission of mental 
characteristics to their very large number of decendants, our pupils, sooner 
or Jater, has not always been all that could be desired. As a result, these 
pupils of border-line mentality have found it exceedingly difficult to learn 
from books and to do the formal school work. Time and again in their school 
history, they have faced failure. These unfortunate and handicapped indi- 
viduals in their desire to gain satisfaction, when it is not forthcoming through 
achievement in academic performance, often choose to seek the lime light 
through behavior extraordinary. This, of course, becomes a serious administra- 
tive problem, and at times upsetting to the whole school. Unless these pupils 
are handled sympathetically and understandingly in school and are permitted 
to gain satisfaction and the joy of achievement in some legitimate way, they 
bid fair to become bitter, antagonistic, antisocial and perhaps delinquent, 
and criminal. Accordingly, our occupational classes were formed with a reali- 
zation that there should be some legitimate place in school where some type 
of activity might be derived that would be within the ability of these pupils, 
and where they might succeed to such an extent that their self-confidence as 
far as school work was concerned might be at least partly restored, and the 
work which they did might be honestly praised and commended. 

In our cecupational classes approximately one half of school time is 
devoted to manual activities and approximately one half to modified courses 
in English, social science, Mathematics, and general science. The pupils are 
in no way segregated from the rest of the school (thus avoiding, it is hoped, 
an inferiority complex that might arise), but meet in their various home 
rooms and attend regular schoo] choruses and gymnasium classes with other 


















46 Na‘tonal Association of Secondary-School Principals | May 





pupils of their size and age. Occupational work is considered among the 


pupils just as such a course as the commercial course, general course, or 
academic course. 

The work of the pupils in the occupational classes is, as has been 
indicated above, divided into shopwork and general education courses. 
For the boys, the shopwork gives elementary training in building main- 
tenance and repair, painting, plumbing and electrical work, simple repair 
work with cement and plaster, work with wood and metal, automobile 
care and minor repairs, gardening, and so on. For the girls, training is 
given in personal service (clothing, food, laundry), in what is called 
codperative school assistance (assisting in preparation of school lunches, 
etc.), in home furnishing and maintenance, in foods, laundering and 
cleaning, child care, home nursing, and health habits. The work in general 
education is drastically revised for pupils in the occupational classes. All 
of this work is handled by one instructor, who gives full time to the 
job. The instructor is given the greatest possible freedom in bringing any- 
thing into the general education program which will interest the pupils 
and stimulate them to do some thinking. In one of the classes visited, for 
example, the teacher was reading to a group of boys an article on Germany 
from the Readers’ Digest. Although these boys would have been very 
unlikely to have read such an article of their own volition, they did be- 
come interested in the account and curious enough to ask several questions 
about it after the teacher had read it to them and explained in very simple 


language some of the facts and ideas which were presented. 


In connection with the so-called shopwork, both the boys and girls 
are given an opportunity to earn pocket money. This is handled through 
what is called the personal service bureau. The boys can earn as much 
as a dollar or two a week taking care of the instructors’ automobiles and 
making, for sale to the instructors, such articles as bookcases, metal trays, 
and clay products. The girls can earn approximately the same amount by 
providing for teachers of the school food service, clothing service, laundry 
and cleaning service, and home service. Townsend believes that the 
opportunity to earn pocket money has removed many of the temptations 
of truancy and juvenile delinquency. The problem of providing oppor- 
tunities for pupils to earn a little spending money is also considered to be 


of major importance in the maintenance of good pupil morale. 


In classifying pupils for the four curricula in the Junior High School, 
no rigid formula has been worked out. The data received from the ele- 
mentary schools, extensive though they are, are not considered sufficient 
as a basis for classification when pupils enter the seventh grade. The 
seventh grade is therefore used as a sort of tryout year; and the pupils are 
studied by the home-room teachers and counselors and are tested for 1.Q., 









1940] Visits to Junior High Schools 47 


subject-matter achievement (Stanford Achievement Tests), and reading 
ability. By the end of the seventh grade, or by the end of the first half of 
the eighth grade, it is believed that the pupils can be classified with a con- 
siderable degree of accuracy. Recommendations for courses are made by 
the home-room teachers and then reviewed by the school counselor. All 
ot the data available for the pupil are considered in arriving at a judgment. 
In the last analysis, the pupil and his parents have the final choice, but 
it has been found in a vast majority of cases that the recommendations of 
the school are accepted after they have been carefully explained. The 
classification of the pupil is not necessarily permanent. Flexibility in 
administration makes possible the reclassification of the pupil at any 
time. 

The counseling program relies strongly upon the effective functioning 
of the home room, which in this school is synonymous with a group 
guidance course. Since only twenty-four of the forty-two teachers in the 
school are used as home-room teachers, it is possible to exercise selectivity 
in choosing teachers for guidance work. A full class period (forty-five 
minutes) is given over to the home room. The home-room activities are 
carefully planned. The teachers are given a great deal of help and super- 
vision by the full-time counselor. For example, as a specific aid to home- 
room teachers, the counselor prepares what are called guidance bulletins. 
These bulletins bear such titles as “Working Paper Information,” “Student 
Council Election and Organization,” “Guidance Bulletin on Clubs,” and 
“The Art of Kindness.” Pupils from all four of the curricula are lumped 
together in the home room. This heterogeneous grouping also applies in 
certain other school activities, such as music and physical education. The 
idea, of course, is to avoid social discrimination, 

Home-room teachers have ready access to the cumulative records of the 
pupils; these teachers are, in fact, responsible for entering a good portion of 
the data on records. In examining the records the writer found many more 
entries of interview notes and anecdotal materials than are ordinarily found 
in secondary-school records. The home room is also important as a unit of 
student government. Care is taken that every pupil shall be an officer or a 
member of a committee. Group guidance, however, is not confined to the 
home room, and there are eleven other types of activities which are con- 
sidered to be a part of the group guidance program. The total guidance 
program is organized to provide all of the following types of guidance: 
health, physical and mental, educational, ethical, social, and vocational. 


The visiting teacher, or home visitor for the school, is a young man 
who speaks the Italian language and is therefore able to deal effectively 


with the parents of many of the problem cases. The home visitor and the 





SERIALS Dames ee Fore 












/ 
/ 
' 











| May 


48 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 





counselor maintain close relationships with all of the social service agencies 
in Mount Vernon. As for placement, the counselor and teachers manage 
to get a few jobs for leaving students, but most of the job seekers are 
referred to the central school placement office, which is maintained by 
the school system of Mount Vernon for junior and senior high-school 
pupils. Some of the boys from the occupational classes have been placed as 
handy men and car washers in garages and in similar types of unskilled and 


semiskilled jobs. 

The general shopwork for the boys and girls in the occupations 
classes was found to be severely handicapped by lack of equipment and 
facilities. This is not surprising in view of the fact that the school was 
given a very small sum of money originally to equip the general shop 
for boys. Very litthe money has been made available to augment the 
equipment since the opening of the shop in 1935, Nevertheless, the teachers 
of both boys’ and girls’ shop courses are making a courageous effort to 
provide instructive and interesting activities; and they have displayed a 
considerable amount of ingenuity in making the most of their limited 


facilities. 

Another class of special interest to the writer was the personality class 
which was being taught by the teacher of home economics. In this class 
the low-ability girls were getting useful information concerning manners, 
dress, make-up, and so on. The teacher said that she also spends a good 
portion of the time on matters of boy-girl relationships, sex hygiene, and 
family relationships. She seemed to have established a very fine relation- 
ship with the young people in the group, all of whom appeared to be 


alert and responsive during the class discussion. 


VocaTIONAL Home Economics AND CoEDUCATIONAL SHop CourRSES IN THE 
Witson Junior Hicu Scuoot or Muncig, INDIANA 


This school offers several interesting illustrations of what can be 
done to make adaptations to the advantage of pupils of varying degrees 
of academic ability within a curriculum which appears on paper to be 
more or less conventional in nature. 

The boys and girls of this school (grades 7 through 9) come, for the 
most part, from lower middle-class and lower-class homes. The require- 
ments which are specified for the seventh and eighth grades are more 
or less traditional junior high-school requirements, although considerable 
differentiation of individual programs is made possible in the ninth grade 
where three electives may be chosen from half a dozen of more courses. 
Even in the seventh and eighth grades, however, consideration of the 
needs of individual pupils has been made possible to a surprising extent 


. 


















1940} Visits to Junior High Schools 49 


by the flexibility in teaching procedures which has been developed in a 
faculty that has become keenly and sympathetically alert to individual 
differences of pupils in ability, interests, and educational and vocational 
goals. Several of the practices which have been rather recently developed 


in this school situation will be described below. 


(1) A recently organized course of training for girls which 

is called vocational home economics 

In the front part of the school building there is a suite of rooms which 
is referred to as the apartment. In it there are kitchen, dining room, and 
living room, all of them furnished in a style suitable for a good middle- 
class home. These facilities are used for the training of girls for domestic, 
hotel, and restaurant service. Pupils in this course may be girls who have 
dropped out of high school, overage junior high-school pupils, or even 
high-school graduates. Apparently, the course has met with great success 
and many job placements have resulted. The writer had an excellent lunch 
which was prepared and served in the dining room by the girls then in 
training. The living room of the apartment, during the latter part of the 
afternoon, has been made available to the regular junior high-school 
pupils for use as a homelike lounge and center for informal social activities. 


(2) Coeducational shop and home economics courses 

The principal of the school, John V. Maier, believes in having boys 
and girls share together all of the educational activities of the school. Con- 
sequently, in all courses—with the exception of physical education and 
perhaps two or three ninth grade courses—one may find mixed groups of 
boys and girls. The writer saw one class of boys and girls in the print 
shop which appeared to be functioning very smoothly. The teacher of this 
shop class seemed to be keenly aware of the individual traits of his pupils 
and to be utilizing his knowledge in the pairing of pupils on projects and 
in the assignment of jobs. For example, one pair of pupils, a boy and a 
girl, who were obviously subnormal in intelligence were put to work on 
a very routine proof press job which they could handle satisfactorily; and 
then they were praised generously for their conscientious efforts, 


The writer also saw a mixed group in home economics in which the 
boys were as enthusiastic as the girls about cooking and home management 
activities. All seventh and eighth grade pupils, girls and boys alike, are in 
both home economics and shop courses (printing, wood, and metalcraft). 


(3) After-school recreational program for 

pupils, teachers, and others 

Certain school areas, and especially the gymnasium, are kept open until 
eight o'clock in the evening. From immediately after the close of school 








50) National Association of Secondary-School Principals | May 


at three-forty in the afternoon until dinner time a program of social and 
recreational activities is provided for pupils and teachers. This arrange- 
ment is a great boon both to pupils and parents because the recreational 
facilities of the neighborhood are very inadequate. The gymnasium floor 
is used not only for dancing, but also for roller skating—a triumph of 
no small proportions in Indiana where a basketball court is the holy of 
holies. For skating the school provides standard rink skates. All teachers 
are expected to participate frequently in these social affairs, to dance and 
skate with the pupils, and to get to know the young people intimately 
in an informal and definitely nonacademic situation. Without question, 
this program has been tremendously effective in establishing the friendly 
feeling of fellowship which permeates the school. 

In the early evening, the gymnasium is available to adult groups. 
Weekly schedules are made out to avoid conflicts in use for various pur- 
poses. The principal says that through this arrangement the school and 


community have been brought closer together to the benefit of both. 


(4) Experimentation with double-period classes (English 

and social studies ) under one teacher 

One such class was visited. The regular teacher was not present, but 
a student-teacher from Ball State Teachers College was in charge. The 
pupils were discussing various kinds of safety precautions which they 
thought should be considered in a unit on safety. Although the inex- 
perienced student-teacher was subjected to considerable tension by the 
unannounced visit of a stranger, she did very well in handling a lively 
class discussion. 

The principal said that he was pleased with the results of the experi- 
ment with double-period classes. He feels that the possibilities for sound 
integration of subject matter are beginning to be realized. Because the 
teacher of a double-period class has fewer different pupils to deal with, she 
has a chance to know her pupils intimately and to function more effectively 
as a counselor. 

For guidance purposes, the school uses both home-room teachers and 
part-time counselors. The home-room period and the first class are 
combined and are scheduled for one hour and five minutes. (The regular 
class period is fifty-six minutes in length). When necessary for group 
guidance purposes, the home-room teacher may utilize a part of the first 


class period. 
THe SECTIONING AND COUNSELING OF PupILs IN THE WEsTPORT JUNIOR 
Hicu Scuoor or Kansas Crry, Missourt 
In Kansas City ability grouping is practiced in junior and senior high 
school for all classes in which enrollments are sufficiently large to make 





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1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 51 


this procedure practicable. It is customary to assign a code number for 
each pupil, determined primarily by scholarship records and grade per- 
centiles on tests of academic ability, “to assist the teacher in checking the 
pupil’s present achievement in his class against available information which 
the school has about that pupil’s possibilities.” Teachers are cautioned 
against allowing the code number to determine grades; and the objective 
which is stressed is that of encouraging pupils to use their abilities fully 
and effectively. Pupils are classified into three—and occasionally more than 
three—ability levels. The groups are designated as A, B, and C, with 
the C group including pupils of the lowest scholastic ability. Differentiation 
of content and teaching method for the three ability levels is encouraged by 
the school administration, but each school is given freedom and responsibil- 
ity for working out its own problems of adaptation. Some of the schools 
have been giving serious attention to the problem of adapting content 
and method to the lower (B and C) groups. The Westport Junior High 
School is one of them. 

In this school, for example, the writer visited the class of one teacher 
who had a C group in both English and social studies. This teacher does 
not rely upon a single textbook, but works out her own special projects for 
her courses. Reading references for the C group pupils are chosen from 


a variety of sources and are carefully selected in terms of the abilities, 
needs, and interests of the pupils. The amount of reading required is also 
restricted in accordance with the limitations of these slow learners; and 
- the work in reading is liberally supplemented by other types of learning 
experiences, ¢.g., class discussion, visual aids, field trips, and so on. It 
appeared to the writer that the pupils in these two C groups were responding 
favorably and energetically to the experiences provided in these modified 


courses. 
A form of report to parents which is in use at this school is worth 


noting. This report is prepared by classroom teachers and sent to the 
parents of pupils who are doing unsatisfactory work in the light of their 
tested abilities. No grades are given in these reports, but the teachers are 
expected to describe the specific causes of failure and to outline constructive 
suggestions for improvement. The parents in turn are asked to record their 
comments and reactions before signing and returning the reports to 
school. The parent comments have frequently supplied valuable counseling 
data and have resulted in many parent-teacher and parent-counselor con- 
ferences. A valuable by-product of this procedure has been the acquisition 
of new insight and increased appreciation of the pupil personnel viewpoint 
on the part of the teaching staff. 

Before pupils actually transfer from elementary schools to the junior 
high school, one of the counselors prepares, with the help of the lower 




















52 Na sonal Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





schools, a preliminary enrollment card. She also holds conferences with 
principals, counselors, and teachers of the elementary schools and makes 
notes concerning special factors (e.g., physical disabilities, home conditions, 
and unusual aptitudes) which may be important to consider in the place- 
ment and adjustment of pupils at the time of transfer. From these notes, 
the counselor dictates memoranda for the junior high-school teachers, so 
that even on the first day of classes the teachers are aware of special 
problems and significant individual traits among their new students. This 
plan, aside from facilitating pupil adjustment, has also helped the 
teachers to become more efficient counselors. Still another interesting 
guidance device which has been found useful both to pupils and their 
parents is the subject guidance chart. These charts have been prepared for 
several subject fields by committees of teachers from several schools under 
the direction of Elizabeth Wilson who supervises junior and senior high- 
school counseling. They present in simple, graphic form the content of 
subjects and the specific outcomes, in terms of both vocational and cul- 
tural implications, of the mastery of these subjects. 




















In-Service TRAINING OF TEACHERS FOR GUIDANCE WorK IN THE Mr. 


VERNON JuNIoR HicH ScHoot or Los ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 










During a visit to this school the writer observed an unusual and 
apparently effective procedure for assisting teachers to improve their under- 
standing of the dynamics of adolescent psychology and their knowledge 
of sound techniques for individualizing their instruction, for use in their 









counseling of young people. 

The procedure which is used to accomplish these objectives is to 
bring groups of teachers together one class period per week during an 
interval of six or more weeks for the reading and discussion of one or more 
case studies. The person in charge of these conferences is Elizabeth Woods, 
supervisor of educational research and guidance for the schools of Los 
Angeles. On the day of the writer's visit to Mt. Vernon Junior High 
School, Dr. Woods was spending the entire day at that school. During 
each of the class periods throughout the day she met with a small group 











of teachers. 










At one of these conferences which was attended by the writer the 
participants included the principal of the school, one counselor, a shop 
teacher, and three teachers of academic subjects. This group had previously 
completed the reading and discussion of a case study which Miss Woods 
had obtained from the Study of Adolescents of the Progressive Educa- 
tion Association. At this session attention was given to the case of a 
pupil in Mount Vernon Junior High School which had been prepared by 
















1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 53 


one of the participating teachers. Following the presentation of the case 
materials, a discussion was begun of the causes of the difficulties experienced 
by the pupil and the remedial steps which might safely be attempted by 
the teachers and counselors of the school. This discussion clearly revealed, 
in the opinion of the writer, that the participants had acquired surprisingly 
keen insight and understanding as a result of their previous conferences 
and discussions. Later in the day, the writer thought that he could trace 
some observable results of this teacher growth in what went on in class- 
rooms, shops, laboratories, and offices of the school. 


There should be added the statement that this type of conference 
procedure which was observed at Mt. Vernon Junior High School is being 
duplicated under Miss Wood’s leadership in a number of other Los Angeles 
secondary schools. Although all of the conferences are conducted on a 
purely voluntary attendance basis and require the teacher to make a 
sacrifice of time which is ordinarily available for her own use, a very 
large percentage of the teachers have responded eagerly to the opportunity 
to participate in all of the schools where the conferences have been held. 
The writer concluded, on the basis of what he learned, both through 
observation in the conferences and in conversation with a number of 
teachers, that skillful leadership of discussion, the utilization of excellent 
and comprehensive case materials, and Miss Woods’ cordial and demo- 
cratic relationship with the teachers and administrators of the schools 
have been important factors in making these conferences stimulating to 
teachers and productive in terms of teacher growth as reflected in improved 
counseling and instructional techniques. 


OccuPATIONAL GUIDANCE AND TRAINING IN THE OyLER AND WASHINGTON 
Junior Hicu Scuoots oF Cincinnati, Onto 


The writer spent part of a school day with the counselor who works 
with the eighth and ninth grade students in these two schools. At Oyler 
Junior High School a visit was made to an eighth grade class in occupa- 
tions. The teaching unit on occupations is a part of the social studies 
course which the vocational counselor takes over for a total of ten to 
twelve class periods. The class was composed of approximately thirty 
pupils—a dull-normal group with an average I.Q. of about ninety. 


The topic of discussion for this class meeting was planning the next 
step in educational training. The counselor started the meeting by explain- 
ing very clearly and fully the educational choices which were open to 
the young people at the end of the eighth grade. She reviewed the various 
offerings of the vocational schools of Cincinnati and also the several cur- 
ricula of the academic high schools. Members of the class, when questioned, 
responded well and gave evidence of being well informed concerning their 





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sa eas ~ REE RRS Ga ee Sa ae ee Oe 


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54 National Association of Secondary-School Principals | May 


possible choices, the requirements of the compulsory attendance law, and 
related matters. 


The counselor then used a very effective technique for getting the 
young people to think about the various factors which should be con- 
sidered in making educational and vocational choices. The technique was 
to give brief, understandable, and interesting case studies. After describing 
a hypothetical case and giving all the pertinent facts, the counselor would 
call upon members of the class to give their judgments as to what a good 
decision would be in such a case. At least two thirds of the young people 
in the class participated actively in the ensuing discussion. The pupils were 
apparently learning to think realistically about their future educational 
plans. ‘ 

The personnel records which were examined were quite complete. In 
the counselor’s office there was also available a great quantity of materials 
on occupations appropriate for use with junior high-school pupils. These 
materials included comprehensive and useful data’ (compiled by school 
counselors under the direction of Mary P. Corre, director of the Division 
of Occupational Research and Counseling) concerning a large number of 
unskilled and semiskilled occupations in Cincinnati which are open to 
youths who have not had college training or preparation for skilled trades. 


At Washington Junior High School, the writer was particularly in- 
terested in special classes which had been organized for retarded and dull- 
normal pupils who, upon completion of the elementary grades, do not 
seem to fit in either the academic junior and senior high schools or the 
vocational schools. One of the special courses provides shop training for 
boys. Emphasis is put upon training for semiskilled work, such as mass 
production operations which are rather common in various types of fac- 
tories. The so-called academic courses, which take up about one half of 
the school day, are quite drastically modified to meet the needs, interests, 
and abilities of this special group of pupils. A similar type of course in 
home economics has been worked out for a group of girls. Pupils for these 
courses are sent to the Washington Junior High School from all parts of 
the city. These courses appear to be carefully planned; and they seem to 
be meeting the needs of the pupils enrolled much more satisfactorily than 
would the ordinary junior high-school curriculum or the type of vocational 
school work which is confined to preparation for skilled trades. 

The counselor with whom the writer visited the Washington Junior 
High School serves the pupils in the special classes, as well as the regular 
eighth and ninth graders in this school. She finds that it is very difficult to 
interest the special pupils in a study of occupations, particularly the types of 


*For more detailed description of these data, see page 85. 





55 


1940 | Visits to Junior High Schools 


occupations for which they will actually be qualified at the end of their 
present school training. She is, however, continuing to experiment with 
new methods of presenting information which is pertinent and applicable 


in the experience of these pupils. 




















CHAPTER V 


Visits to Senior High Schools 


Tue pescriptions of the guidance and curriculum practices which are 
primarily related to senior high-school programs will be divided into two 
chapters. The present chapter contains, for the most part, comments which 
are specifically related to the programs of a number of individual high 
schools. In the next chapter descriptions will be given of procedures and 
policies which apply, by and large, to the programs of school systems and 
of entire communities, although in Chapter VI, also, frequent references 


will be made to particular schools and their practices. 


In presenting the following comments on senior high schools, the 
writer again calls attention to the statement at the beginning of Chapter IV 
which explains the primary objectives of his visits to secondary schools. 


SERVING A ScHOOL ConsTITUENCY OF Many NATIONALITIES 
Lincotn Hicu Scuoot, Los ANGELEs, CALIFORNIA 


Lincoln High School is a very large school which serves a lower-class 
district peopled by an amazing mixture of races and nationalities. In gen- 
eral, the pupils are socially and economically underprivileged, and a large 
proportion of them can be classified as below average in intellectual ability. 
A rather high percentage of the pupils are Mexican and Japanese; the school 
population includes thirty-seven different nationalities in all. The school 
has, through steady effort over a period of perhaps twenty years, built a 
program which is remarkably well adjusted to the widely varying needs 
and aptitudes of this heterogeneous student body. Ethel Percy Andrus, the 
able and energetic principal, told the writer the fascinating and dramatic 
story of the school’s early struggles to win the confidence and respect of 
its unusual constituency, to eliminate the racial conflicts which at one time 
were continually creating serious crises in schoo] and community, and to 
reach out into the community, through revised school practices and the 
effects of the school program, to foster the growth of tolerance, codperation, 
and community pride in the school. The courageous and devoted efforts of 
the administrators and teachers of the school have been bountifully re- 
warded in this writer’s opinion, as well as in the opinion of several other 
visitors to the school with whom he has compared notes. Now the 
school has established close and harmonious relationships with the people, 
churches, and social agencies in the community; it has created an unusually 
vigorous and effective student government; and it has built up a compre- 
hensive curriculum program which is intelligently planned, especially for 
the great majority (approximately ninety-five per cent) of the pupils for 


56 













1940 | Visits to Senior High Schools 57 


whom high-school training will be terminal. The school also has a magnifi- 
cent new building (perhaps one should say a series of buildings) which 
nas been designed to provide the facilities necessary for achieving the ob- 
jectives that are unique to this particular school. The comments which 
follow will, it is hoped, substantiate in part the foregoing generalizations. 


The heart of the academic or general education program is a course in 
social living which runs straight through the high-school years and is re- 
quired of all pupils. Pupils are grouped on the basis of 1.Q.’s, backgrounds, 
interests, and educational and vocational objectives. The work done by 
different social-living groups is varied in accordance with analyses of the 
special needs and of the aptitudes of pupils in these groups. A common 
and all-important objective in all of the social-living work is learning to 
get along successfully and happily with one’s fellows in school, at home, 


and in the adult community. 


A great deal of attention is given to the problem of occupational ad- 
justment. Special courses are provided to prepare pupils for jobs in kinds 
of occupations which may possibly be open to them after high-school gradu- 
ation. For example, the writer saw a group of boys who were learning 
upholstering. Another group of pupils was found learning the simpler 
processes and skills which are related to the ceramics industry. A group of 


retarded girls were spending much of their school days studying cooking, 
sewing, and allied domestic arts. There are other vocational courses which 
aim to prepare pupils for specified semiskilled jobs; but in all of the voca- 
tional training a conscious effort is made to develop good work habits and 
attitudes and basic skills which can become assets to youth in a variety of 


semiskilled or unskilled occupations. 


The student government functions with extraordinary effectiveness, 
especially considering the multiplicity of races in the student body and 
the diversified backgrounds of the young people. The writer had several 
opportunities to see student government in action. He met with the student 
council in a session where newly elected members were being given advice 
and a resume of their responsibilities and duties by the retiring members. 
Intelligent talk, vigorous discussion, and pertinent questions filled the air 
from start to finish. The meeting was, on the whole, superior to most 
similar meetings of college students which the writer has attended. The 
president of the council was a Mexican boy, and almost all the council 
members had different racial backgrounds. The writer also witnessed an 
assembly program which was being conducted entirely by pupils. The 
purpose of the assembly was to give recognition to a number of groups 
and individuals for various kinds of achievement, including good citizen- 
ship and community service. The meeting began with a very impressive 





















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58 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 
ritual, in the form of a choral pledge, which has been introduced to 
symbolize the democratic spirit and ideals of good citizenship in the 


school. The pupils who directed the program did a remarkably good job. 


The health program in Lincoln High School is very comprehensive 
in scope. Well-equipped rooms have been provided for the school physician 
and nurse. There is a health codérdinator whose responsibility it is tc 
coordinate the health program with the other pupil personnel services. 
Every pupil is examined thoroughly once a year, and this general examina- 
tion is supplemented by special services and examinations throughout the 
year, ¢.g., eyes, ears, tuberculin tests, and free vaccinations. One responsi- 
bility of the persons in charge of the health program is to help teachers 
to become alert and skillful in observing evidences of illness and physical 
disability. A visual-aid room, equipped for movies and slides, is being 
extensively used in the program of health education, as well as for other 


purposes. 
The principal of the school has always been profoundly interested 
in problems of school-community relationships. She has recently been 
giving serious thought to problems growing out of the circumstance that 
many of the parents of pupils have come to this country from the totalitarian 
nations. Because of conflicts which have frequently arisen between pupils, 
trained in the democratic way of life, and parents, still uninitiated in the 
ways of democracy and often exposed to propaganda from the old country, 
the school is providing an evening course for parents. The content of this 
course roughly parallels that of the twelfth grade social studies course. By 
means of this adult course the school hopes to foster the growth of demo- 
cratic ideals and practices throughout the entire community, a school 
function which is considered to be especially vital in a community where 
the proportion of foreign-born and unassimilated elements is very large. 


Another immediate problem which is being given continuous study 
is the revision of the curriculum to meet the needs of some of the most 
retarded pupils who now leave school when they reach the age of sixteen. 
Although this problem has not yet been entirely solved, the writer found 
many evidences of progress in the provisions which are made for individ- 
ualized instruction, flexibility in program planning, and realistic counseling 
of pupils in terms of their individual problems of academic, social, and 


occupational adjustment. 


CRITERIA FOR COUNSELING AND SECTIONING 
CotumsiA Senior HicH ScHoot, SourH Orance, New Jersey 


The Columbia High School serves both South Orange and Maplewood 
(which form the combined South Orange-Maplewood School District) 












1940 | Visits to Senior High Schools 59 


and draws its pupils from two junior high schools, one of which is the 
Maplewood Junior High School that was described on pages 37-39. 


Most of the pupils in the school are from upper middle-class families. 
Fifty per cent of the graduates go to college, and another 20 per cent 
go to commercial, technical, secretarial, and other posthigh-school institu- 
tions offering advanced specialized training. Of the 30 per cent who do not 
continue formal education beyond high school, a large proportion seek 
employment; and a high percentage of this group are said to be successful 
in finding jobs. This is not, of course, a typical high-school situation in 
terms of the make-up of the student body or of the occupational adjustment 
factors. Nevertheless, this school has modified its program and require- 
ments for the lower ability pupils and has inaugurated a number of school 
practices which make possible considerable differentiation of educational 
experiences for young people who possess different kinds and amounts of 
ability. 

Differentiated curriculum experiences are provided in two ways: 
(1) through a very flexible plan of programming—the only requirements 
for graduation being four years of English and one of United States 
History; and (2) through the sectioning of pupils for all academic courses 
into three or four ability groupings. Each pupil’s program is a “hand- 
tailored” one which is worked out by the counselor and the pupil. Fre- 
quently the parent is also brought into conference. There are a considerable 
number of nonacademic and vocational courses from which to choose in 
the planning of a pupil’s program. The data from the elementary and 
junior high school (described in the account of the Maplewood Junior 
High School), plus additional data obtained by the senior high school, 
are utilized by the counselor in advising the pupil. 

The sectioning of pupils in various courses is done by the class guides 
(counselors). Assignments are made, not by any mathematical formula, 
but rather as the result of the best possible subjective judgment, after con- 
sideration of the following nine factors which have been listed by Curtis 


Threlkeld, principal of the school: 


1. Intelligence quotient. 


2. Recommended classification submitted by the teacher in a particu- 


lar subject. field. 

3. Pupil’s achievement in the particular subject field as reflected by 
the marks he has earned in that field. 

4. The future plans of the pupi!. For instance, if a pupil is determined 
to apply for admission to a college of high order and his record and ability 
may not justify his placement, yet he will be kept in A and B sections until 
he either demonstrates his abilitv to do that kind of work or finds that he 
will have to make a substitute choice. 























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National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


Special interests of a pupil as they are reflected in his work in a 


5. 


particular subject field. 

6. Handicaps or disabilities, such as deafness, reading defects, defective 
vision, and the like. 

7. Personality factors, such as response to competition, reaction to pres- 
sure, emotional maturity and stability, reaction to failure or success, pur- 
posiveness or the will to do, degree of determination, etc. 

8. Health. 

%. Pupil load, involving the number of subjects a pupil may be carry- 
ing, his sectioning in other groups, home responsibilities, employment outside 
the school, ete. 

By considering all course placements subject to change and by main- 
taining flexibility in the process of transferring pupils who have been 
wrongly placed, provisions have been made to guard against the dangers of 
rigid classification. 

The writer visited several of the D (lowest) sections in academic 
subjects. In a biology class he found a D group of tenth graders working 
in the laboratory. The pupils seemed to be interested and well motivated; 
and the teacher was on excellent terms with the pupils, was tolerant of 
their shortcomings, was quick to encourage and to praise conscientious 
effort. In a D section of mathematics for eleventh graders the pupils were 
studying general mathematics with emphasis upon application in the affairs 


of everyday life in ordinary business transactions. 


In some of the lower sections in English, movie and radio materials 
were being utilized for instructional purposes. Much attention is also being 
given to oral English in classroom work. One of the English teachers said 
that he was exploring new types of reading materials to use with the lower 
sections. He added that his experience indicated that the slow groups did 
not get much from the reading of such commenly prescribed books as Silas 
Marner and Ivanhoe unless they were read aloud in class and interpreted 
to the pupils by the teacher. 


The counseling staff at Columbia High School is large in comparison 
to what one finds in most schools of comparable size. There are five coun- 
selors now, and it is expected that a sixth will be added eventually in order 
to have two counselors for each of the three grades. In addition to indi- 
vidual counseling, the counselors assist the home-room teachers in the 


planning of group guidance projects. The counselors also plan and ad- / 


minister an ambitious program of occupational orientation, carried on 
outside the regular curriculum but set up as an integral part of the all 
inclusive guidance service. The written report of the program which h 

been arranged for the eleventh and twelfth graders gave evidence of fa 
plan that had been well conceived and carefully organized. A seriotis 











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1940 | Visits to Senior High Schools 61 


attempt to evaluate this program had been made by means of questionnaires 
filled out both by pupils and teachers and by means of the application of 
several objective criteria in the study of purposeful activities which pupils 
voluntarily undertook as the result of the occupational orientation program. 


A CoursE in Human RELatTIons 


Puoenix (Arizona) Hicn ScHoor 


In this school the writer found a course that has the objective of 
helping adolescents to develop understanding and skill in human relations 
and to objectify and solve the many problems which young people en- 
counter as they approach the critical period of transition from adolescence 
to adulthood. This course, an elective for Juniors and Seniors, is called 
social living. It was being offered for the third year. The teacher is a 
mature woman who was head of the home economics department of a 
large university some years ago before her marriage. Now that her children 
have grown up she is employing her wide experience and great talents in 
teaching. A part of her time is spent in offering to adult groups, composed 
chiefly of housewives, informal courses dealing with practical problems 
of home and family life. The high school has been fortunate in obtaining 
her services on a half-time basis for teaching boys and girls. 


The social-living course now has three sections, two for girls only, and 
one for boys and girls. The coeducational class is being tried out for the 
first time this year; it was inaugurated at the demand of boys who had 
heard about the course from their friends among the girls. The writer 
visited the mixed class and was very keenly impressed by what he saw 
and heard. The course content for the work of the semester in this class 
(as in all of the other social-living classes) is largely the result of pupil 
thinking and planning. The outline of topics for the semester which had 
been agreed upon by the pupils contained the following major headings: 
the meaning of human relations, getting along with other people; im- 
proving personality; boy-girl interests; social customs and etiquette; making 
marriage a success; and a general category which included such problems 
as how to make a satisfactory home adjustment; how to make good in 
the business world; living up to what the community expects of you; and 
how to become cultured. 


Although the class was comparatively large (forty-three pupils), every 
“one of the pupils was drawn into the exceedingly lively and stimulating 
class discussion. Six or eight pupils presented anecdotes and concrete life 
situations which served to illustrate in a meaningful way problems of 
human relations within the family. These situations were then discussed 
and debated with great vigor and refreshing frankness. Although the class 




































































62 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





had met only two times previously, it was clearly apparent that the teacher 
had already completely won the confidence of the students. It was evident 
that a very important factor in the success of this class was the ability of the 
teacher to demonstrate in her own behavior the valuable art of establishing 
good human relations. As the result of the helpful and challenging class 
discussion, many pupils in this course voluntarily seek the help of the 
teacher on individual problems. Two or three such cases have cropped up 
already in this particular class since the beginning of the semester. Even 
in the short space of one class period, the writer was able to observe 
significant evidence of individual problems and clues as to their causes in 
the case of five or six of the pupils. 


Toward the end of the class period the pupils and teacher together 
worked out an assignment for the next class meeting. Certain pupils were 
asked to present to the group actual incidents and life situations which 
would illustrate certain aspects of human relations. The following topics 
(which were copied practically verbatim from the blackboard) will serve 
to indicate the kinds of problems the pupils suggested: helping people to 
improve through encouragement rather than through punishment; giving 
people the benefit of the doubt; tolerance, the consideration of others; im- 
proving relationships by willingness to listen to explanations; making clear 
agreements as a basis of improving relations at home; understanding that 
people are all different. After the class the writer talked with several pupils 
who spoke with great enthusiasm about the courses and the teacher. Then 
there followed a one-hour conference with the teacher. During this con- 
ference the writer learned that not much information about this course is 
available in written form, but he did get two mimeographed stenographic 
reports of discussions held by pupils. These reports had been prepared at 
the request of the pupils. The pupils felt that by showing the reports to 
their parents they could get them to understand more clearly the adolescent 
point of view. A significant outgrowth of this pupil-sponsored project was 
a series of panel discussions in which both pupils and parents participated. 
The writer was fortunate enough to obtain copies of the stenographic re- 
ports on two such pupil-parent conferences. The contents of these reports 
give additional evidence that the objectives of the social-living course are 


being achieved in very large measure. 


Tue CiricaL APPROACH IN COUNSELING 
CENTRAL HicuH Scuoot, St. Pau, MINNESOTA 
Central High School has an enrollment of slightly more than two 


thousand pupils who are spread over a wide range in terms of ability, home 
background, financial status, and educational and vocational objectives. In 


























1940] Visits to Senior High Schools 63 


accordance with a revised statement of the school’s philosophy which has 
been set down on paper, the teachers and administrators are endeavoring 
to implement -a policy of differentiated training for the various types of 
pupils enrolled. The tentative grouping of pupils into three major categories 
which has been made is somewhat as follows: (1) those who tan hope 
to enter and succeed in college (estimated to be less than 50 per cent); 
(2) those who are interested and can succeed in the commercial course (a 
relatively small percentage); and (3) all other pupils (estimated as at 
least one half of the pupils) for whom high school will probably be a 


terminal course. 


The third group of pupils is put into a general course which provides 
a rather wide variety of electives and includes modified courses in some 
academic subjects. The requirements for graduation in the general course 
are twenty-four senior high-school credits, of which ten may be selected 
from the nonacademic group. There are fourteen subjects classified as 
nonacademic from which the pupils may choose. A pupil of low ability, 
whose achievement is below the standard required for college recom- 
mendation, but who makes a conscientious effort in his school work, is 
given a P grade (passing without college recommendation). Those who 
are given P grades are not disqualified from receiving a high-school di- 
ploma. Since the new program for the lower ability pupils went into effect, 
the “dropouts” due to failure and discouragement have been reduced from 
43.7 per cent to 26.8 per cent of the number of pupils entering the tenth 
grade. 


In order to have available the most comprehensive and reliable data 
possible for the sectioning of pupils and the counseling of individuals with 
respect to educational and vocational goals, Central High School has built 
up an unusually comprehensive testing service. The testing is carried on 
under the auspices of the guidance department which has one very large 
room and two or three smaller ones in the basement of the school building. 
Although the guidance department administers a number of group tests 
for various purposes, the most important part of the test service is the 
testing of individual pupils for specific purposes. An individually prescribed 
battery of tests, in other words, is administered whenever particular kinds 
of information are needed to help a pupil make important decisions con- 
“cerning his educational experience or vocational plans. In the emphasis 
placed upon this kind of testing procedure, the school has been strongly 
influenced by the Testing Bureau of the University of Minnesota and its 
clinical approach in the testing and counseling of pupils. Several of the 
University of Minnesota counseling and testing experts have, in fact, served 
as expert consultants to the high school. 



























[May 





National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


A full-time head counselor directs the guidance department. He super- 
vises all of the testing work and is responsible for the scientific interpre- 
tation of test data. The director of guidance is assisted by several part-time 
counselors, selected from the teaching staff, who work individually with 
pupils assigned to them. These part-time counselors are given intensive 
in-service training for their work. One of the aids in the training of coun- 
selors is a loose-leaf manual which is expanded from time to time. When 
the writer saw this manual, it contained fifty-eight mimeographed pages 
of data and instructions concerning various aspects of counseling. The 
materials in the manual included instructions on counseling techniques, 
data on the interpretation of test results, reports of studies in the prediction 
of success in various courses, and suggestions for the counseling of pupils 
concerning education beyond high school. In the writer’s judgment, this 
counselor’s manual is an exceedingly valuable and useful guidance in- 
strument. 
The individual diagnoses of skills, interests, special aptitudes, and 
the interviews based upon careful analysis of test results and school histories 
are done very well indeed in the guidance department. The writer did get 
the feeling that perhaps not quite enough attention was being given to 
matters of social adjustment and mental health or to the possible advantages 
of utilizing group guidance for some purposes. However, it cannot be 
said that the guidance department is a thing apart, completely divorced 
from the curriculum and the classroom teaching. Through numerous serv- 
ice studies and frequent informal conferences between counselors and 
teachers, the guidance department is increasingly relating its activities to 
the other aspects of the educational program; and as a consequence, it is 
exerting a growing and desirable influence upon the curriculum and upon 
teacher attitudes toward the problems of individual pupils. 


One of the comparatively recent outgrowths of the revised philosophy 
of the school is a placement and employer contact service. The development 
of this service has been entrusted to one of the science teachers, an able, 
genial, and vigorous man, who is very popular with the pupils and very 
well qualified to deal successfully with employers in the community. This 
man is now spending a good part of his time on placement work. As the 
placement officer has become better acquainted with employers, he has 
had growing success in the placement of pupils. Now he is planning to 
devote most of the summer vacation to solidifying school-employer rela- 
tions. His work in the field is also giving the school a great deal of in- 
formation which will be valuable in curriculum planning. For example, 
the discovery was made that there is a strong trend on the part of a number 
of employers to prefer male stenographers and secretaries. Accordingly, 












1940 | Visits to Senior High Schools 65 


next year a number of qualified boys will be encouraged to enter the 
commercial course for secretarial training. 

Visits were made to two modified English classes which are especially 
designed for low ability pupils. One of these, a class for 11-A students, 
was being superbly taught by a teacher who is a very cultured, charming, 
and witty person. This teacher had for years taught only college prepara- 
tory pupils; she is still the special advisor for the most brilliant group of 
pupils in the school. Nevertheless, she has become very much interested 
in the modified work for the slow learners, because she sees that real 
creative imagination and effort are called for in developing a stimulating 
and worth-while English course which will meet their needs. In addition, 
she has found that these pupils are very appreciative, likeable, and fun to 
work with when the teacher gives them half a chance. 

In the class which was visited, the pupils were trying out a new method 
of making book reports. The pupils were paired, and then each one of a 
pair took turns in questioning the other concerning the book to be reported 
on. This procedure worked very well and afforded a natural situation for 
practice in correct oral English usage. The teacher made abundant use 
of encouragement and praise. For every pupil she tried to discover some 
kind of skill or ability in which the pupil excelled. One boy whose intel- 
lectual deficiencies were made apparent during the oral work was asked 
to write the title of his book on the board. This gave the pupil an oppor- 
tunity to show off his handwriting, which was very neat and legible, to 
the class and the visitor. 

In a 12-A class in modified English, the writer observed another 
interesting technique for encouraging pupils to improve their speaking 
ability. In the front of the room there was a radio microphone which had 
been hooked up with a loud speaker. The pupils participated enthusi- 
astically in a program of informal and unrehearsed broadcasts. It was 
obvious that the opportunity of speaking into a microphone and of hearing 
their voices come through the loud speaker served to arouse keen interest 
among the pupils and to motivate them strongly in their efforts to use 
good diction and grammar. 

A few words may be added in passing concerning a new service which 
has been organized by the St. Paul Public Library in coéperation with the 
schools. This is an Occupational Guidance Service for youth from sixteen 
to twenty-six who are out of school and out of work. In addition to pro- 
viding numerous references on occupations, this service includes apitude 
testing and individual counseling by a trained advisor, a former school 
counselor who has been loaned to the library. A certain number of tests 
are administered free of charge, and additional testing is made available 


on payment of a small fee. 





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National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


Traininc Pupits or Low Scuorastic ABILITY FOR 
SEMISKILLED OccUPATIONS 
Newark (N.J.) Vocationat ScHoot For Giris 


In this school, one of the Essex County vocational schools, the writer 
investigated a course of training for pupils of limited ability that should 
be of special interest to junior and senior high schools which are located 
in industrial areas, and which have large numbers of low ability pupils 
who may be expected to seek work of an unskilled or semiskilled nature 
in shops and factories. The course was formerly called the multi-vocational 
course, but is now designated as the general vocational course. In this 
unique course the girls, most of whom enter by transfer from the academic 
schools at the age of fourteen or fifteen, are given three years of training 
of a very general nature in occupational skills and activities related to 
factory work, laundry, foods, and shopwork. 

The mechanical department or shop, in which the factory training 
is given, is very different from most school shops. Instead of lathes and 
similar equipment requiring highly skilled operators, this shop is equipped 
with a great variety of drill presses, buffers, and other kinds of relatively 
simple machines which require very little skill in their operation. There 
were many factory type workbenches and most of the simple hand tools 
which are commonly used for assembly work and similar operations. 


The girls learn to operate all of the machines and to attain the degree 
of speed and expertness which would be required in an industrial plant. 
They also work in small groups on assembly jobs (e.g., assembling parts 
that are used in radios) which are split up into a number of simple opera- 
tions exactly as is done in a typical factory situation. The objective of the 
general education course is not to produce skilled workers for highly 
technical jobs, but rather to give the girls systematic, elementary training 
in a variety of occupational skills and to develop work habits and attitudes 
that will be useful in almost any kind of employment situation. 

Supplementary to the vocational training, required courses of a modi- 
fied type are provided in English, social studies, hygiene, and physical 
education. The average girl in this course is able to complete all of the 
required work in three years. A few of the ablest and most conscientious 
of the pupils are successful in completing the requirements—ali of which 
are set up in the form of units or projects—in as little as two years. No 
girls, however, are recommended for jobs until they have achieved good 
standards of workmanship. By establishing high standards (in terms, of 
course, of the kind of training which is given) the school is producing 
good, conscientious workers, an important consideration in maintaining 
the confidence of employers in the school’s recommendations. 








Visits to Senior High Schools 


PRE-EMPLOYMENT CLASSES 
Mount Peasant HicH Scuoor, Provivence, R. I. 


The extensive student personnel studies which have been made by 
Richard D., Allen, assistant superintendent of schools in charge of guidance, 
have revealed many pertinent facts about those young people who are 
very difficult to fit into the program of the academic senior high schools 
and who, as a consequence, decide to drop out of school as soon as they 
reach the age of sixteen, when compulsory attendance ceases to apply. 
Under present conditions, it was evident that few of such youth can get 
jobs within the first year or two after leaving school. All too frequently 
these youth enter the job market with inadequate knowledge about occu- 
pations and about their own occupational potentialities. Furthermore, they 
usually lack the information and special training needed to cope realis- 
tically with the problems of seeking and winning a job. 


In the attempt to meet the special needs of the pupils who indicate 
their intention of leaving school at age sixteen, the Providence schools have 
inaugurated a new type of course which is called a pre-employment class. 
The teachers of these classes are called pre-employment counselors; they 
have all had special training in guidance and are specially qualified by 
experience and interest to deal successfully with the type of young people 


enrolled in these classes. The pre-employment counselors have these pupils 
tor all of their school work excepting shop courses. In the pre-employment 
class the counselor devotes a great deal of time and effort to giving the 
pupils specific, practical preparation for meeting their individual problems 
of occupational and social postschool adjustment. The counselor also at- 
tempts, however, to give the pupils a certain amount of modified instruction 
in English and social studies. The counselors are given a very free hand 
to experiment with teaching materials which will function successfully 
with the pupils, all of whom are, of course, poorly endowed with academic 
and reading ability. 

The writer visited two pre-employment classes—one for boys and one 
for girls—at Mt. Pleasant High School. These classes were being offered 
for the first time in this school. Naturally, the teachers, working without 
precedent or past experience to guide them, were feeling their way along 
on an experimental basis. A definite pattern of instruction had not yet been 
crystallized. Even in this early stage in the development ef the course, 
however, many encouraging evidences of successful achievement could be 
found. The teacher of the boys’ pre-employment class was a young man 
who had had several years of experience in industry before becoming a 
counselor in the Providence schools. As a result, he had firsthand knowl- 
edge concerning the kinds of jobs which his pupils could hope to compete 












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68 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 
for successfully. The counselor likes and understands the type of boy with 
whom he works in the pre-employment group; and he is endeavoring with 
energy and enthusiasm to construct a course which will meet the needs 
of these pupils. It seemed to the writer that the boys, on their part, were 
responding very well to the counselor's friendly interest and sincere effort. 
The class morale was apparently good; and almost all of the boys with 
whom the writer talked voluntarily expressed satisfaction with their expe- 
rience in this course. It has already become evident that some of the pupils 
in the pre-employment groups have abandoned their intentions of dropping 
out of school when they reach the age of sixteen and have decided to 
continue on in pre-employment classes at least for a time. 

During his Providence visit, the writer was privileged to attend a 
conference of the six pre-employment counselors from three senior high 
schools. At this meeting the preemployment counselors discussed the 
problem of placement for their students. Plans were made for codrdinating 
their work more closely with that of the junior employment service which 
is operated by the school system. The counselors also made plans for taking 
pre-employment classes to visit various industrial establishments in Provi- 
dence. The industries to be visited will be carefully chosen with a view 
to acquainting these pupils with the kinds of jobs which may eventually 


be open to them in the community. 


A Practica, Arts DEPARTMENT FoR GiRLs 
CENTRAL JuNror-SeNton Hicu Scuoot, Soutn Benp, INDIANA 

In order to provide suitable occupational training and a modfied type 
of general education for girls of limited scholastic aptitude who have failed 
to make a satisfactory adjustment in the academic curriculum, this school 
has established a practical arts department for girls. The course of training 
offered by this department is an integral part of the school program, al- 
though it is only two years in length and is classified as ungraded. 

To be admitted to the practical arts course a girl must be at least 
thirteen years and eight months of age and be recommended for acceptance 
by her teachers, her counselor, and the principal of her school. There is 
no requirement in terms of grade completion; and although most of the 
girls enter the course from the junior high school, some retarded pupils 
are transferred directly from the elementary grades. School records, reading 
and scholastic aptitude tests, pupil interests, the attitude of parents, and 
the judgment of teachers and counselors all enter into the decisions which 
are made concerning recommendation and acceptance of pupils into the 
course. The pupils who finish the course do not receive high-school diplo- 
mas, but they are given certificates showing that they have completed the 


two years of training. 









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1940 | Visits to Senior High Schools 69 


There are ten types of vocational classes in the practical arts depart- 
ment. These are designated as foods, meal and table service, sewing, power 
sewing, home management, household science, home service training, cafe- 
teria service, personal regimen, and infant care. The writer visited one of 
the meal and table service classes where the pupils were learning to order 
food, to plan meals for a family, and to cook and serve in the home. The 
students were apparently working busily and happily. The teacher was 
doing a good job of individualized instruction, and she seemed to know 
her girls intimately. The class work was well organized and the attitude 
of the pupils businesslike and purposeful. In other classes girls were being 
trained for jobs in tea rooms and restaurants. In the power sewing class 
the pupils were being prepared for work in factories. At the same time 
they were producing garments for themselves and for members of their 
families. The writer was told that a high proportion of the practical arts 
pupils have been placed in jobs at the completion of the two-year training. 
The courses in general education which are required of all practical arts 
pupils are English, social studies, occupations, arithmetic, art, music, and 
physical education. The pupils also participate freely in the assemblies, 
clubs, and other extra-curriculum activities of the school. In all of the 
academic courses teachers are attempting to utilize practices and to select 
teaching materials which fit the abilities, needs, and interests of the pupils. 
The teachers of the academic subjects are members of the practical arts 
department who are selected in terms of their ability to work sympa- 
thetically and successfully with pupils whose scholastic aptitude is limited. 
The academic teachers co6perate very closely with the teachers of the voca- 
tional courses. 


CurricuLuM Revision AND GUIDANCE 


Mapison (N.J.) HicH ScHoor 


Madison, with a population of perhaps eight thousand, is known as a 
commuters’ town; but there is a large Italian group and a fair sprinkling 
of Negroes living in the city and in near-by districts from which the high 
school draws pupils. As compared with a typical American community— 
Middletown, for example—Madison is said to have a larger proportion of 
upper middle and upper class families, as well as of lower class families, 
but a much smaller proportion of middle and lower middle class families. 
_ The abilities of the high-school pupils range from very high to very low. 
” A distribution curve of the 1.Q.’s of the pupils would be much flatter than 
a normal curve. Less than 40 per cent of the graduates enter college. The 
school is a four-year high school (grades 9 through 12) and has an enroll- 
ment of approximately seven hundred fifty. This figure includes a few 
seventh and eight graders, the overflow from the junior high school. 








70 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


The high school offers differentiated curricula leading toward several 
types of posthigh-school objectives. There are three college preparatory 
curricula which are designed to prepare pupils (1) for liberal arts college 
work, (2) for college agriculture, (3) for technical college training (en- 
gineering and sciences). Only two noncollege curricula were being offered 
at the time of the writer's visit, namely, a course in vocational agriculture 
and a commercial course; but the teachers and administrators. of the school 
were working energetically to construct a third noncollege sequence. This 
new course is called the social-scientific curriculum and may be described 
as a combination of general education and preparation for the occupational 
adjustment of noncollege pupils. Eventually, this may well be the most 
important of all the curricula, in the sense that it will probably enroll the 


largest group of pupils (one half or more) 


The writer was fortunate in being invited to be present at a curricu- 
lum-planning conference which was attended by the supervising principal, 
the high-school principal, the visiting teacher, and eight of the high-school 
teachers. The teachers present represented a number of subject-matter 
areas, including physical education, home economics, English, social studies, 
and physics. All members of the conference group entered actively into 
the discussion, which was vigorous and stimulating. In regard to general 
education for the noncollege pupils, the members of the conference seemed 
to be thinking in terms of the kind of training which Rainey has called 
“education for the common life.” In reference to preparation for occupa- 
tional adjustment, the trend of the group’s thinking appeared to be moving 
in the direction of training in various elementary skills which are useful 
for unskilled and semiskilled jobs in manual, clerical, and personal service 
occupations. There was also a rather strong sentiment in favor of pro- 
moting, eventually, a plan of co6perative part-time work, with the assistance 
of local employers, as an integral part of the social-scientific curriculum. 
The conierence demonstrated very clearly that a serious effort is being 
made to attack, on a broad front and in a very thorough manner, the 
problem of devising a set of educational activities and experiences which 
will be more useful, meaningful, and interesting to the noncollege pupil 


than is the conventional type of college preparatory course. 


It is clearly recognized by the administrators of the high school that, 
in order to advise pupils intelligently concerning their curriculum choices 
in a differentiated program, it is absolutely essential to have comprehensive 


pupil personnel records and an effective counseling system. In line with 
this recognition of the need, a strong guidance program has been built up. 
Some of the distinguishing features of this program are as follows: 





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1940] Visits to Senior High Schools 71 





1. Comprehensive cumulative records are maintained and kept constantly up to 
date. Although the records are usually on file in the principal's office, they are grouped 
according to the home rooms of the pupils and are readily accessible to teachers. 


2. There is a home-room program which gives the home-room teachers (rep- 
resenting a majority but not all of the teachers of the school) four half-hour periods 
per week with their groups. 

3. Several special counselors (called guidance teachers) are selected from among 
the teaching staff to supplement the guidance functions of the home-room teachers. 
For example, there is a guidance teacher who teaches orientation classes and gives 
individual attention to pupil objectives and long-range educational planning; and 
there is a guidance teacher who assists pupils in problems relating to the preparation 
for college. 

4. A rather unique type of report card is sent to parents. The report gives the 
parents a great deal of information in addition to grades, e. g., an indication of the 
young person’s special strengths and weaknesses in behavior, attitudes, and scholastic 
achievement. 

5. Frequent individual and group conferences are held with parents concerning 
their children’s educational experiences and the school’s program. It has been found 
that, as the parents come to have a clearer understanding of the school’s objectives and 
of their own children’s abilities and limitations, their confidence in the school and 
their willingness to co6perate actively increase. 

6. A comprehensive program in the testing of scholastic aptitude and achievement 
is carried on. As an aid to teachers in the interpretation of test scores, percentile curves 
of test results are constructed and distributed to the teachers. Practically no vocational 
aptitude testing has been attempted, however, because the principal believes that unless 
a well-trained staff and a well-equipped testing laboratory can be provided, it is 
dangerous for a school to “play around with” any of the vocational aptitude tests, other 
than a few of the well-standardized mechanical and clerical tests. 

7. Brief, interesting, mimeographed bulletins and guidance aids are frequently 
prepared by the principal (who has had special training in pupil personnel work) for 
distribution to the counselors and teachers. Among the copies of guidance aids which 
were obtained by the writer are short bulletins with these titles: The Use of Intelli- 
gence Test Results and the Problem of Grouping; Test Results for the Class of 1942; 
Home-Room Period Discussion; and Problems Bearing on the Selection of Courses. 


8. An employment service is operated by the school. 


It is the opinion of the high-school principal, Ward Schoemaker, that 
the school’s system of personnel records, its extensive testing program, and 
its counseling services make possible rather accurate and defensible classi- 
fication of pupils for the six curricula which the school plans to offer. 
However, as a safeguard, every effort is to be made to enable pupils who 
may be wrongly placed to transfer from one curriculum to another with 
little or no loss in time or credit. 











CHAPTER VI 


Programs of School and Community Action 


As PREVIOUSLY EXPLAINED in the introduction of Chapter V, the 
present chapter is concerned chiefly with the work of the senior high schoo! 
and is devoted, for the most part, to discussion of practices which apply to 
entire school systems and to programs of community action. Procedures 
which have been developed in individual schools within the communities 
are, however, frequently described for purposes of illustration and supple- 
mentation. 

In this chapter, as in the two preceding ones, the writer emphasizes 
aspects of the secondary-school program which are directly related to the 
major purposes he had in view when he visited the schools. These purposes 
have been stated in Chapter I and in the introduction of Chapter IV. 


A Community Pian of AcTIon For YoutTH IN A SMALL Town 
Dowaciac, Micuican, AND Its Rurat AREA 


In Dowagiac the writer found inspiring examples of what can be 
accomplished when the social agencies and influential citizens of a com- 
munity codrdinate their efforts in an organized plan of action for attacking 
the present problems of youth. Dowagiac is a town of fifty-eight hundred 
population located in southwestern Michigan approximately twenty-five 
miles from South Bend, Indiana. The town and its rural trade area include 
some one hundred fifty square miles with a total of seventy-eight hundred 
inhabitants. This relatively small community may probably be accurately 
described as predominantly rural in character, although it is not in any 
sense an isolated one. The people in this area have ready access by rail and 
by road to the industrial and metropolitan centers of Chicago, Detroit, 
South Bend, and so on. Metropolitan newspapers, visitors from the cities 
to near-by summer resorts, and many other agencies of communication 
serve to link Dowagiac rather intimately to life in the industrial centers 
of the Middle West. 

Many of the significant projects for youth which were discovered in 
Dowagiac stem from the activities of the community plan which had been 
in operation for approximately a year. This plan is the outgrowth of study 
and action on the part of a group of community leaders which included 
the superintendent of schools and the principal of the high school. The 
community plan has as its major objective “helping all the people of the 
community to help one another through an educational program of the 
widest scope.” Major emphasis has been placed, however, upon joint 
school and community projects designed to benefit the young people of 

72 








1940] Programs of School and Community Action 73 


the community. The organization which has the administrative responsi- 
bility for carrying out the purposes of the community plan is called the 
community council. This council has a representative from every civic 
organization and social agency in the community, a total of fifty-five in all. 
The interests represented on the council include religious groups, city 
government, schools, labor, industry, business, service groups, farm organi- 
zations, women’s clubs, and youth. The council has an executive board 
of eighteen members, and an executive secretary who is the only paid officer 
of the council. A limited amount of financial assistance for the work of 
the council has been obtained from a local benefactor. Closely allied to the 
community council, although not actually under the jurisdiction of the 
community plan, there is a youth organization. This organization, in fact, 
antedates the community plan and had been in operation a little over two 
years at the time of the writer’s visit to Dowagiac. The youth organization 
has a membership of approximately eight hundred boys and girls between 
the ages of fourteen and twenty-three. It has a council of fourteen members 
and an adult advisory committee of two. 


Some concept of the functioning of the community plan may be gained 
from a brief discussion of several of the projects which have been carried 
out under the auspices of the council. One project, which is directly related 
to the welfare of children in school, is the providing of hot lunches each 
noon to nearly two hundred indigent young people, many of whom come 
to the schools from farms in the rural areas surrounding Dowagiac. An- 
other project which specifically serves young people is the establishment 
of social centers for boys and for girls in two church parish houses which 
are open noon, afternoon, and evening for recreation and social life. These 
centers, which are operated under supervision, have been unusually bene- 
ficial to young people in a community that has no Y.M.C.A. or Y.W.C.A. 
and no recreational centers other than those which are operated commer- 
cially. The community council has assisted the youth organization to carry 
on an extensive program of social activities for all the youth of the com- 
munity, including both in-school and out-of-school young people living 
both in town and on farms. The recreational program includes frequent 
community dances, held in the high-school building, which have success- 
fully competed with the attractions of the roadhouses near Dowagiac. 
A special committee, representing a variety of organizations, has been 
appointed to make a thorough study of all of the recreational facilities 
available and to make recommendations for the improvement of the 
community’s recreational program. The committee has been instructed 
to study the possibilities of developing such activities as skating, swimming, 
summer playgrounds, and a baseball league. A placement service to aid 
youth who need full-time or part-time jobs has been inaugurated. Two 




















74 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [ May 





thousand copies of a mimeographed sheet explaining the placement service 
and suggesting a scale of minimum wages and hours for various kinds of 
work have been circulated. The council has also sponsored a community 
school, which offers evening instruction to adults in a rather large variety 
of cultural and vocational subjects, and has initiated half a dozen other 
community projects for adults and youth. 

In the initiation and vigorous growth of the community plan, the 
administrators and teachers of Dowagiac’s school have played an active 
and significant part. The school is also attempting to codrdinate its practices 
and activities with the enterprises sponsored by the community council 
and to reconstruct its educational program in order to give its pupils a more 
realistic and a more adequate preparation for adult life, occupational ad- 
justment, and the responsibilities of citizenship. In accordance with these 
objectives, several steps have already been taken by the school under the 
leadership of the superintendent of schools, James Lewis. For example, 
advantage has been taken of the new federal apprenticeship program. 
Approximately forty boys and girls have been brought into the appren- 
ticeship plan, including eight boys apprenticed to farmers and one or two 
hoys apprenticed to restaurants. A resort training course for girls has been 
established. The girls in this course (somewhere between a dozen and 
twenty) are being given intensive training for work as waitresses, maids, 
and cooks during the resort season. It is expected that all of the girls in 


the course can be successfully placed. 


In order to help pupils to anticipate and to prepare for the adjustments 
which they will have to make when they leave high school, new courses 
have been inaugurated for the study of occupations and life problems. 
During the past year or so increased help has been given through organized 
group guidance and individual counseling in the planning of the pupil’s 
high-school program. The writer attended a group guidance class for boys 
which was being conducted by the high-school principal. The principal 
explained college requirements, but he spent a great deal more time dis- 
cussing the possible course sequences which might be desirable for those 
pupils (by far the majority of those present) who were not going to college. 
Many questions were asked of the boys to determine whether they fully 
understood the options available to them and the recommended choices per- 
taining to various types of postschool objectives. It was apparent that the 
principal knew all of the boys intimately, and that he had completely won 
their respect and affection. For a meeting of its type, it was an excellent 
demonstration of effective group guidance. However, this group discussion 
is only a first step in the assistance which is given for program planning. 

















1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 75 


The next and most important step is to be the scheduling of individual 
conferences with each of the pupils. 


The relationships of the principal and teachers to the students in this 
school are delightfully friendly and informal. After lunch when the writer 
came into the school building (which houses both the elementary and high 
school) through the playground in the rear, he was in the company of 
one of the members of the high-school staff. Four small boys (six or seven 
years old) were playing earnestly, with hunting knives in their belts and 
bullets flying from either hand. When the boys saw the member of the 
staff, they all stopped their game long enough to yell a cheerful “Hello, 
Jim.” Jim responded by greeting all the boys by their nicknames, and then 
took time out to check up on the number of redskins that had bitten the 
dust that day. This incident typifies the spirit of the school community. 


The teachers and administrators of the high school are, fortunately, 
not satisfied that they have solved all their problems, or that they have 
completed the construction of a school program which will adequately 
serve the present needs of all the pupils. A continuing program of experi- 
mentation, teacher participation in summer workshops and study groups, 
and careful evaluation of all aspects of school practice has been projected 
for the future. The school is participating in the Michigan Study of 
Secondary School Curriculum which is being sponsored by the State 
Department of Education. Through its membership in this experiment, 
the school has access to the consulting services and the expert help which 
are provided through the staff of the Study. 


In the Dowagiac school, among both pupils and teachers, as well as 
in the town itself, the writer got a strong impression of life and hope, of 
a courageous and adventuresome attitude toward the future. Perhaps 
Dowagiac is beginning to experience the thrill of discovering and con- 


quering a new frontier. 


An Ati-Community Attack Upon YoutH ProsLeMs AND THE 
UniricaTIon oF OccupaTIONAL ADJUSTMENT SERVICES 
FoR YouTH IN Denver, CoLorabo 


In this city of three hundred thousand population, the fact that there 
are approximately ten thousand youth between the ages of sixteen and 
~ twenty-five who are out of school and unemployed has both aroused con- 
cern and produced strong action on the part of the schools and almost all 
of the social and civic agencies of the community. The resultant activities 
and their effects upon youth are too numerous to be described fully in a 
few pages. The best that can be done here is to attempt to outline a few 
of the high lights of the Denver program for aiding youth. 














| M ay 


National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


The Adult Education Council of Denver has played an important 
role as a codrdinating agency in an all-community attack upon the youth 
problem. The work of the council has been supported by representatives 
of industry, education, social welfare, and public services. During 1938 
the council, aided by W.P.A. funds, undertook a thorough youth survey 
in order to get the facts about the young people of Denver. This survey 
was published in July, 1938, and it has provided the necessary factual 
basis for a comprehensive community plan of action. 

During the latter part of 1938 the Adult Education Council called 
several meetings of representatives of industrial management, labor, parent 
organizations, the church, the schools, social service agencies, and youth 
organizations to formulate such a community plan. A nine-point program 
was tentatively adopted which stated provisionally the major steps that 
were considered immediately essential for an attack upon youth problems 
It suggested specific courses of action appropriate to the schools, the Cham 
ber of Commerce, the labor organizations, the government and _social- 
welfare institutions, and a number of other community agencies. For 
example, the schools, both public and parochial, were urged to a'tempt to 
revise their programs to better meet the needs of the 85 per cent of youth 
who will neither go on to cellege nor enter the professions or the skilled 
trades. It suggested, furthermore, that the schools will need to give greater 
attention to job personality avd work attitude trainine, to occunational 
guidance, and to the expansion of codrdinating activities which will relate 
echool training and guidance more practically to the realities of postschool 
life. Specific sugges ions for the assignment of responsibilities to nonschool 
agencies were also included in the outline of the community program. 
Finally, there was a recommendation that a coérdinating council composed 
of representatives cf all interested agencies be organized to carry the pro- 
gram into effect and to evaluate and improve it as time goes on. 

At the time of the writer’s visit, plans were being perfected for the 
establishment of a single. unified, occupational adjustment service. The 
major objective here is a fully coérdinated program of guidance, training, 
and placement for Denver youth. This enterprise is the joint undertaking 
of the Denver public schools, the Colorado State Employment Service, and 
the National Youth Administration. The agreement which had been drawn 
up by the three co%peratine atencies contained a clear statement of policies 
and procedures. The school agreed to furnish space for the adjustment 
service in the Emily Griffith Opportunity School in rooms which were 
being remodeled to take care of records, counselors, codrdinators, place- 
ment officers, and a testing unit. Since the writer’s visit to the city, the 
Denver Occupational Adjustment Service has become a reality and has 
been making rapid progress in building an effective and integrated pro- 





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1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 


gram of guidance, training, and placement. In Denver, therefore, the 
public agencies which are concerned with the occupational placement and 
adjustment of young people have been able to reconcile their differences 
in policy and their jurisdictional conflicts as the result of sincere and en- 
lightened effort to find a common basis for working together in the interest 


of ali Denver youth. 

To tell about all of the interesting practices and experimental pro- 
cedures which were observed in visits to half a dozen secondary schools 
would require many more pages than are available here. Certain aspects 
of the program of Baker Junior High School, however, have been described 
on pages 28-32; and brief comments concerning three other schools will 
be added here. Perhaps the most unusual one of these schools is the Emily 
Grifith Opportunity School. This institution, under the intelligent leader- 
ship of Paul L. Essert, is providing an exceptionally conaprehensive and 
flexible program of occupational training and adjustment. Training and 
individual counseling are available to all youngsters who have withdrawn 
or have graduated from the secondary schools and to all of the adults of 
the community, regardless of educational achievement, whether they be 


unemployed or ambitious to improve their employment status.’ 


South High School has a two-year core course (combining English 
and social studies) for tenth and eleventh grade students in which the 
attempt is being made to relate the pupils’ educational experiences to the 
realities of community life. Teachers of the core courses serve as counselors 
as well as teachers of the students in their classes. Differential treatment 
of pupils, in terms of their abilities and interests, is provided by sectioning 
the core classes into three ability levels. 


In Manual High School, which serves a very cosmopolitan student 
body including Italians, Spanish Americans, and Negroes, great stress is 
being placed upon the improvement of general counseling and vocational 
guidance, training, and placement. In order to free more teacher time for 
individual counseling, this school has cut the home-room period to a brief 
administrative meeting and has eliminated one of the two study periods 
which has been provided for every pupil. These changes have reduced 
slightly the amount of time which pupils actually spend in school, but 
they have also released a great deal of teacher time from home-room and 
stady-room supervision. As a result, it has been possible to select from the 
forty-two classroom teachers eighteen who are reasonably well qualified 
for guidance work and to give these teachers several periods per week 
for individual counseling. The school also has two counselors (a man and 

1For further information about this school see “Vocational Guidance in, the Emily Griffith Op- 


portunity School of Denver,’’ by A. J. Stoddard, in the October, 1938, issue of Occupations, the 


Vocational Guidance Magazine. 











ae 
















[May 





78 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 
a woman) who spend part-time in placement work for boys and girls. One 
of these counselors is to be the liaison officer for the school and the cen- 
tralized Denver Occupational Adjustment Service which has been de- 
scribed above. 

Manual High School has also inaugurated a new form of report to 
parents which substitutes for grades a summary statement, prepared by 
the counselors of the students, of activities and abilities (1) “in which the 
pupil does his best work,” (2) “in which special improvement is possible 
and desirable,” and (3) “in which the pupil deserves commendation for 
continued ‘average performance.’” The parents are asked to give their 
criticisms, comments, and suggestions when signing the report. Several 
sample reports which were examined were found to be revealing in con- 
tent. A number of the reports from parents contained both useful informa- 
tion concerning the home situation and constructive counseling suggestions. 
The principal of the school asserted that the use of this new device has 
stimulated parent interest, as well as improved counseling. 

A comparatively new school department which has been organized 
in Denver is called the Department of Special School Services. This de- 
partment has catalogued and mobilized for school use a wide variety of 
community resources and material aids to supplement the regular instruc- 
tional program. Some of the resources which are thought to offer excellent 
educational opportunities are industrial establishments, museums and other 
cultural institutions, and civic and political institutions. Material aids in- 
clude visual materials, museum materials, and special bulletins which 
contain data compiled from many nonschool sources. During approximately 
half of one school year, the Department of Special School Services arranged 
two hundred field trips for a total of nine thousand students. The depart- 
ment also codperates actively with the Kiwanis Club, the Zonta Club, and 
other organizations which are especially interested in helping youth to find 
satisfactory occupational goals by means of conferences, interviews, and 
so on. In short, this department has the responsibility of knowing about 
all of the community resources and supplementary teaching aids that are 
available in the city and region and of facilitating their use in all the schools 
by teachers, student bodies, classes, and individual pupils. 


A ComPREHENSIVE ProGRAM OF GUIDANCE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF 

Unique OccupaTIONAL ADJUSTMENT SERVICES, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA 
The program of pupil personnel services which is in operation in the 
Oakland school system is one of the most comprehensive that the writer 
discovered during his travels. All of these services, excepting those which 
deal specifically with occupational adjustment, are supervised by the de- 
partment of individual guidance, whose director is Herbert R. Stolz, 








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1940] Programs of School and Community Action 79 


assistant superintendent of schools. The occupational adjustment services 
are supervised by the assistant director of Oakland vocational schools, 
Spencer D. Benbow. Although the writer confesses a personal prejudice, 
on theoretical grounds, against the supervision of different aspects of a 


total guidance program by two more or less coérdinate administrative divi- 
sions, he must also admit that in Oakland this plan has apparently worked 
out quite satisfactorily in practice. This fortunate outcome, however, may 
certainly be attributed in large part to the broad vision, the unselfish in- 
terest in the welfare of young people, and the will to codperate which 
characterize the staff members who man the two guidance divisions. 


If space limitations did not interfere, the writer would speak at some 
length of the philosophy which governs the activities of the department 
of individual guidance. It must suffice here to say that the writer was pro- 
foundly impressed by the saneness of this department’s viewpoint as it 
was expressed in the conversation of staff members, in the personal relation- 
ships of central staff members with teachers and counselors in the schools, 
and in all of the printed and mimeographed reports and bulletins of the 
department. It was especially encouraging to find that the intelligent phil- 
osophy of guidance which underlies the department’s program is not 
merely stated in the abstract, with its practical implications left to the 
unaided imagination of classroom teachers, school counselors, and school 
administrators. The department has prepared and distributed to schools 
a series of two and three page analyses of the individual guidance program. 
These analyses state in concrete, specific terms the school procedures which 
are recommended, the school personnel responsible for carrying out the 
procedures, and the school and central staff members who are expected 
to perform the function of coérdination. In the two copies of the assistant 
superintendent’s annual report which the writer was given, the practical 
application of the department’s philosophy of guidance in all of the many 
personnel functions that are performed is also made clear and explicit. 


A complete discussion of the individual guidance program in Oakland 
would necessitate descriptions of the contributions made by many different 
groups of people, i.e., classroom teachers, principals and vice principals, 
school counselors, special class teachers, school nurses and dental hygienists, 
school physicians, and members of the central department. Since this is 
out of the question here, the writer will select for comment from the great 
mass of data in his possession only a few of the many interesting guidance 
practices in the Oakland system. 

One of the major tasks of the department of individual guidance is 
to carry on a continuous assessment of the special needs of individual pupils. 
The scope of this assessment is very large. In the area of health, for 




















80 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


example, the usual routine physical examinations of pupils are supple- 
mented in many ways. Tests of impaired vision or eye strain, audiometer 
tests of hearing, and diagnoses of speech defects are regularly employed 
in the schools. Paralleling this program of examining and diagnosing is 
an equally comprehensive program of remedial treatment and of special 
arrangements for those who are physically handicapped in any way. The 
department administers classes for the deaf and hard of hearing, classes 
for the physically handicapped, classes for speech correction, and individual 
instruction for homebound youngsters. Rest classes have also been organ- 
ized for pupils returning to school following illness and for those whose 
health requires systematic relaxation for one reason or another. Although 
most of the rest classes are to be found in junior high and elementary 
schools, at least one or two of the high schools also have them. The writer 
visited two of these rest classes, one in Claremount Junior High School 
and another in Oakland High School. In each case the class was under 
the supervision of a school nurse; and the pupils, some of whom were 
reading and some simply relaxing, were reclining in cots or deck chairs 
in large, bright, airy rooms located on the upper story of the schooj 
building. These rooms were referred to, in accordance with good California 
traditions, as solariums. A significant aspect of the total health program 
in Oakland is the great extent to which regular classroom teachers have 
been trained to observe evidences of physical ailments and handicaps and 
to assist intelligently the school nurses and the school physicians in their 
constructive efforts to improve the health of the pupils. 

Another outstanding feature of the work of the department ot 
individual guidance is the degree to which this department co6rdinates 
its activities with those of the community agencies. The personnel of the 
central staff, as well as of individual secondary schools, works in close 
codperation with parents, physicians, dentists, clinics, the juvenile court, 
various character-building agencies, the parent-teacher association, and 
numerous welfare agencies. There is a constant exchange of information 
and of ideas which aids both the schools and the other agencies to meet 
the needs of young people in school and in the life of the community. The 
writer observed one very practical illustration of such coéperative thinking 
and action when he attended a meeting of staff members of the depart- 
ment of individual guidance and representatives of the juvenile detail of 
the police department. At this conference the police officers and school 
officials “got down to brass tacks” in their discussion of practical, concrete 
problems of juvenile delinquency. Many individual cases were brought 
up for consideration. In the end, several definite decisions and agreements 


emerged with respect to the responsibilities and courses of action to be 


undertaken by each of the two agencies represented. The Oakland school 





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1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 81 


system, incidentally, offers a program of instruction to youth temporarily 


confined in the detention home. 

A third aspect of the program of individual guidance which will be 
referred to briefly is the strong emphasis which is placed upon the import- 
ance of satisfactory social adjustment, that is, the adjustment of the 
pupil to his social environment both in and out of school. In this area 
of pupil personnel work, several of the secondary schools have achieved 
notable results by the use of rather unique practices which are supplementary 
to the usual high-school program of pupil activities and social affairs. For 
instance, at the Claremount Junior High School the writer saw a pupil 
clubhouse which was located in a one-story portable on the school grounds. 
This clubhouse is a much-prized pupil “hangout” where boys and girls 
may meet to play games and to participate in the most natural and informal 
sort of social intercourse. The University High School of Oakland also 
has established a clubhouse for pupils and has been trying out a number 
of exceedingly interesting procedures for assisting adolescents to make 
normal and happy social adjustments.” 

The occupational adjustment activities in Oakland are no less inter- 
esting than the services which are supervised by the department of in- 
dividual guidance. Most of the occupational adjustment work is done in 
the senior high schools and in the two vocational schools. In view of the 
fact that an unusually large percentage of the junior high-school pupils 
continue on in high school, no very pressing need for intensive vocational! 
guidance apparently as been felt by the junior high schools. In the 
senior high schools the supervisor of occupational adjustment works through 
the school counselors and supplies them with materials (to be specified 
later) for vocational guidance purposes. Vocational guidance is stressed 
especially in the twelfth grade when many of the pupils are about to 
enter the job market. The general theory seems to be that the high-school 
graduates fall into three main groups: (1) those who will not profit 
greatly from any further training and who should be encouraged to seek 
employment in unskilled and semiskilled jobs; (2) those who can profit- 
ably prepare for skilled trades or other occupations requiring posthigh- 
school training of the kind given by the two Oakland trade schools or 
by junior colleges which have semiprofessional courses; and (3) those 
who are qualified and able to go into four-year college courses. For the 
first group the occupational adjustment program stresses instruction in 
how to find a job and in the acquisition of reliable information about the 


“For further information concerning the interesting program of the University High School, see 
the December, 1934. and October, 1938, issues of the University High School Journal published by 
the University of California University High School. Other articles concerning this school, written 
by Marian Brown and Vibella Martin, may be found in the December, 1935, issue of Progressive 
Education and the April, 1938, issue of the California Journal of Secondary Education. 




















































wee 


Pee 


* 








82 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





kinds of jobs which these pupils may reasonably hope to get. For those 
who go on after high school in the Merritt Business School or the Central 
Trade School there is a continuing occupational adjustment program, 
which includes a placement service. The pupils who are planning to enter 
college are, of course, counseled with respect to their choices of colleges 
and college courses. 

Among the materials which have been prepared for high-school use 
there were available at the time of the writer’s visit two movies that had 
been produced by the supervisor of occupational adjustment activities with 
the assistance of the supervisor of visual education. The first of the films 
to be seen by the writer was called How to Hunt Jobs. In it two high- 
school Seniors dramatized approved procedures of job hunting. Both public 
and private placement agencies and a number of other sources through 
which young people can seek jobs in Oakland and the Bay Region were 
portrayed in the action which took place. This film, a good example of 
the excellent results which can be obtained in the amateur production of 
movies, appeared to be an effective device for giving economically to 
large numbers of young people practical training in how to approach 
employers and placement agencies and how to exploit all of the approaches 


to job opportunities which may be available to youth. 


The second film viewed was entitled Twenty-four Jobs. The jobs 
selected for filming were some of the beginning jobs—according to the 
results of a survey of five hundred employed recent graduates—which 
are available in largest numbers to high-school graduates. None of the 
occupations in the film required, for beginners, special training beyond 
that which can be obtained in high schools. Examples of these jobs are: 
simple clerical work, gasoline filling station attendant, waitress, ordinary 
bank clerk, grocery store clerk, unskilled and semiskilled factory jobs, 
soda fountain and drug store clerk, and stockroom boy. The film showed 
beginners, after a few weeks or months on the job, performing their 
customary duties. Captions emphasized the prerequisites for obtaining 
and holding the job and also indicated, in some instances, the possibilities 
for advancement. Actual cases of recent graduates were chosen for the 
movie sequences. The writer was very favorably impressed by the content 
of the film and by the potentialities of this device for the accurate presen- 
tation of realistic occupational information. It should be noted that the 
kinds of jobs which were pictured and the method of their selection put 
the emphasis upon the needs and opportunities of the noncollege young 
person. The aim is, of course, to foster in the minds of these young people 
constructive and factually grounded attitudes toward the kinds of em- 
ployment opportunities which are most abundantly available to them. 










1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 83 


The first of the two films which have been described is shown to 
all high-school seniors in small groups shortly before graduation. The 
seniors discuss the film thoroughly, as well as an explanatory pamphlet 
which is distributed at each showing. Later, after an interval of a few days, 
the pupils are given an examination on the contents of both film and 
pamphlet. The second film is also shown to high-school seniors; and 
again the pupils are given a supplementary pamphlet. Two other movies, 
which had already been scheduled for production, are to be called Merritt 
Business School and Central Trade School. These new films will be 
used to show high-school students the kinds of job training offered in the 
two trade schools, the skills required in some of the actual jobs to which 
the training leads, and how the trade-school graduates are assisted in 
obtaining jobs. 


Nearly fifty occupational pamphlets have been prepared for the use 
of pupils, teachers, counselors, and administrators. More than half of 
these pamphlets are designated as occupational briefs. Only one of the 
jobs described might conceivably require college training. For the rest 
only high-school training or, at most, trade-school or junior-college training 
is essential. A few of the titles of these occupational briefs are as follows: 
The Letter Carrier, The Calculating Machine Operator, The File Clerk, 
Retail Merchandising, The Service Station Attendant, and What About 
Barbering? Other pamphlets are called occupational bulletins. They 
deal with such subjects as How To Hunt A Job, Social Security, Direc- 
tories of Employment Agencies in the Bay Region, and Classification of 


Occupations. 


The method of distributing the occupational pamphlets is unique and 
very effective. Copies have been placed in racks in all of the high schools 
where they are readily available to pupils, counselors, and teachers. Any- 
one who has an immediate interest in one of the titles or anyone who has 
merely had his curiosity aroused simply helps himself to a pamphlet. 
Approximately one hundred and fifty thousand copies of the pamphlets 
had been printed up to January, 1939. Printing costs are kept very low 
by making all pamphlets concise, by the use of inexpensive stock, and 
by having the printing done by the Central Trade School print shop 
and Meritt Business School multigraph class. 


_ The assistant director of vocational schools supervises the placement 
services in the schools. All senior high schools have a placement service 
for part-time jobs. The Meritt Business School has an employment 
service which places its students and other qualified applicants in both 
part-time and full-time jobs in commercial and retail fields; and the 
Central Trade School does placement work for its pupils in skilled trades. 


















84 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





There is also continuous and active coéperation between the schools and 
the California State Employment Service. One specific example of this 
codperation is the arrangement which has been made for having represen- 
tatives of the state employment services go to the schools during the spring 
to interview high-school pupils and to take job applications. Arrangements 
are also made with the appropriate officials in Oakland for the issuance 
of social security cards to graduating seniors. 


Among the remaining occupational adjustment services which are 
carried on by the central office are the following: the preparation of a 
bimonthly occupational news bulletin, the maintenance of a speakers 
bureau for occupational talks to high-school groups, the preparation of 
occupational bibliographies, school distribution of announcements of 
civil service examinations, and the continuous appraisal of the employment 
situation for youth by means of several types of follow-up studies. The 
follow-up studies not only aid in evaluating the effectiveness of the occupa- 
tional adjustment program, but they also uncover new data and occupa- 
tional trends which are helpful in making plans for the future. In carrying 
out all of the occupational adjustment functions which have been enumer- 
ated, the schools have sought and have obtained the good will and active 
help of many community agencies, including service clubs, the National 
Youth Administration, and city and county governmental units. 


Although the foregoing description of the program of individual 
guidance and of occupational adjustment in the Oakland schools is 
admittedly very sketchy and inadequate, it is hoped that the reader will 
sense the fact that this program is one which reaches down into the schools 
and effects vitally the educational experience and the life adjustment of 
many individual pupils. The counseling services and the facts which have 
been brought to light by the intensive study of the needs of individual 
pupils are exerting a strong and constructive influence upon the recon- 
struction of the secondary-school curriculum. Consequently, one finds in 
the secondary schools much experimentation in progress, as well as many 
curriculum adaptations which have been instituted to better meet the 
needs of all pupils, not excepting that numerous group of young people 
who will neither go to college nor enter the professions or the skilled 


trades. 


OccuPATIONAL RESEARCH IN THE CINCINNATI SCHOOLS AND THE 
CoGRDINATION OF SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY AGENCIES 


The Division of Occupational Research and Counseling of the Voca- 
tion Bureau of the Cincinnati school system, under the energetic leadership 
of Mary P. Corre, has made notable progress in the collection of informa- 
















pr 
he 







1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 85 


tion which has been very helpful in counseling and which is supplying 
many facts about the occupational situation that are potentially useful 
for curriculum modification at the secondary level.’ The collecting of 
these occupational data has been done, for the most part, by eight full- 
time school counselors who have devoted approximately one day per week 
to the job. The procedure followed involves visits to industrial establish- 
ments and training centers and interviews with employers, personnel 
managers, workers, and technical authorities. 


The materials on hand at the time of the writer’s visit to Cincinnati 
gave detailed, factual information concerning more than five-hundred 
occupations, many of them jobs for which no college or specialized trade 
training is required. Not even the unskilled labor jobs (e.g., garbage 
collectors, street cleaners) had been neglected. The counselors had also 
compiled data concerning approximately one hundred training centers 
which prepare youth for a wide variety of occupations and professions. 
The practice of having the school counselors themselves participate in this 
ambitious program of occupational research has provided valuable ex- 
perience and training for the counselors. These persons have acquired 
firsthand information about a variety of industries, business, and _pro- 
fessions, as well as the points of view of employers and workers in Cin- 
cinnati. At the same time, the counselors have had innumerable oppor- 
tunities to enlist the interest and the codperation of employers with respect 
to the problems of the occupational adjustment of young people. 


The occupational information that has been collected by the counselors 
has been made available for use in the schools in the following three 
ways: (1) brief mimeographed job descriptions presented in language 
which is understandable to pupils; (2) printed pamphlets for general dis- 
tribution, as well as for the use of all members of the school staffs; and 
(3) very comprehensive and detailed occupational analyses which are 
filed in large, loose-leaf notebooks for the use of school counselors. The 
counselors’ notebooks are continually revised and supplemented as new 


occupational data become available. 


The Division of Occupational Research and Counseling frequently 
prepares and distributes to the schools mimeographed bulletins which 
help to throw light upon specific aspects of the total problem of the 
ogeupational adjustment of youth in Cincinnati. Among the large number 
of useful documents which the writer examined were concise, informative 
bulletins dealing with these topics: Occupations for the Mentally Retarded; 
Occupational Choices of Eighth Grade Students; Changes in the Structure 
of Occupational Life in Cincinnati from 1805 to 1930. There are ad- 


3See also the comments concerning two junior high schools in Cincinnati on pages 53-55. 















Soe ro - 





86 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


ditional types of materials which are prepared for the schools. The 
writer saw units on occupational information and vocational planning 
which can be incorporated into junior and senior high-school social studies 
courses. A seven-page bibliography contained lists of books—fiction, non- 
fiction, and biography—which are related to more than fifty occupations 
and professions. Another bulletin, four pages in length, listed all materials, 
which might be helpful in a school’s vocational counseling program, that 
are available to schools through the central office. These counseling aids 
are slides, posters, charts, printed materials, and movies. The motion 
pictures are ones which are available from the Ohio State Department of 
Visual Education, from industrial concerns, and from other sources. 

It is a significant fact that, in its efforts to contribute to the solution 
of the occupational adjustment problems of Cincinnati youth, the Division 
of Occupational Research and Counseling constantly seeks to codrdinate 
its work with the activities not only of individual secondary schools, but 
also of the other divisions of the Vocation Bureau. These divisions are: 
psychological laboratory, child accounting, scholarship, and __ visiting 
teachers. ‘The Vocation Bureau, incidentally, might be more accurately 
called—as evidenced by the scope of the services it performs—the depart- 
ment of pupil personnel services. 

The Vocation Bureau itself maintains close contact with the social 
agencies and civic organizations of Cincinnati. For example, when the 
writer attended a meeting of the Cincinnati chapter of the American 
Association of Social Workers, he found among the members present 
five or six persons from the staff of the Vocation Bureau. On another 
occasion, the writer attended a conference which the director of the 
Division of Occupational Research and Counseling had with three men 
who are active in the Codrdinating (formerly called Neighborhood) 
Councils which have been organized in half a dozen or more sections 
or communities within the city. The topic of discussion at this conference 
was the codrdination of the resources of all community and social agencies, 
including the schools, for a concerted effort to solve the immediate problems 
of youth in Cincinnati. It was apparent that the Vocation Bureau, as 
well as several of the city schools, is co6perating actively and cordially with 
the Codrdinating Councils. These Councils have in several instances made 
very encouraging progress in the prevention and cure of juvenile de- 
linquency, in the provision of worth-while leisure time facilities for 
young people, and in the general awakening of adult groups to their 
responsibilities in respect to the young people who are faced with difficult 
problems of school and postschool adjustment. 

Still another example of codperation between the school and other 
community agencies was found in a large scale project for the vocational 

































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1940] Programs of School and Community Action 87 


guidance of high-school pupils and recent graduates which has been 
sponsored jointly by the Y. M. C. A. and the schools. The general secre- 
tary of the Cincinnati Y. M. C. A. told the writer that this joint enterprise 
involves the active participation of from six hundred to seven hundred 
business and professional men, who are available for individual interviews 
with youth, as well as for conferences with groups and for addresses to 
school assemblies. The Y.M.C.A. secretary believes that this project 
has had some very valuable outcomes. Among them he listed these: the 
stimulation given to youth to think seriously and realistically about their 
vocational objectives; the formation of many fine friendships between 
young people and influential adults; numerous cases of job placement and 
financial aid for immediate needs and for continuing education; and an 
increased and more enlightened interest on the part of influential citizens 
in the problems of education and occupational adjustment. 


Aptitupe TESTING AND THE Dua System oF ACADEMIC AND 


OccupaTIONAL ScHooLs IN BALTIMORE 


Baltimore has a distinctly unique method of providing differentiated 
types of educational training for its youth. For dull-normal pupils and 
for those who become uninterested and maladjusted in the traditional 
academic curricula, Baltimore has established a four-level system of oc- 


cupational and vocational schools, distinct from the academic junior and 


senior high schools, into which pupils may be transferred at any time 
from the fifth grade on up into senior high school. To be eligible for 
transfer, however, pupils must be at least thirteen years old. Separate 
schools are maintained for each of the four levels. These schools, ranging 
from lowest to highest, are called: (1) occupational schools, (2) advanced 
occupational schools, (3) general vocational schools, and (4) vocational 
schools. At the lowest level, the vocational training is definitely non- 
specialized and aims to teach pupils a few basic, generalized skills, fami- 
liarity with simple tools, machines, and job processes, and good work 
habits and attitudes. At the highest level, specialized training is given 
tor skilled trades, such as machinist, linotype operator, skilled mechanic, 
and so on. In all of the vocational schools, certain courses in general educa- 
tion are required, and these subjects are also graded to the abilities of 
the pupils. An attempt is made to make these general education subjects 
meaningful and interesting by relating them as much as possible to the 
shop courses and occupational interests of the pupils. 


A pupil may be transferred from the academic schools directly into 
any one of the four types of vocational schools; but his placement will 
depend upon his aptitudes, educational achievement, and age. A_ pupil 














88 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


may transfer into one of the lower schools and, if his abilities and 
achievement warrant, move up into a higher level. It is also possible for 
a pupil in one of the occupational schools to transfer back into an academic 
school if he desires, providing he demonstrates sufficient interest and 
capacity for academic work; but this kind of transfer apparently does 
not occur very often. Each transfer into an occupational school must be 
approved by the principal of the academic school. Such approval is based 
upon the recommendation of the supervisor of aptitude testing for the 
entire school system. The principal is ordinarily guided by the judgment 
of the school counselor, who usually knows the child, has studied the 
report of the test supervisor, and has conferred with the pupil’s parents. 
When the plan of transfer to occupational schools was first inaugurated, 
the schools are said to have had considerable difficulty in persuading pupils 
and their parents of the desirability of transfer out of academic courses, 
probably because of the factor of social stigma which was thought to be 
involved in this change. Apparently, this early resistance on the part of 
pupils and parents has been pretty well broken down, because now there 
is actually a waiting list of pupils who want to get into the occupational 
schools. This change in attitude is attributed to the greater success, 
interest, and happiness of the pupils who have actually made the transfer 
from academic to occupational schools. 

It is recognized that the Baltimore scheme of differential secondary- 
school training has raised serious questions in the minds of many school 
people. Some of these questions are: Will such a dual system of schools 
tend to emphasize social and class distinctions? Will the provision ol 
separate schools to which many of the less academically gifted pupils may 
be transferred take the pressure off of the academic schools to reconstruct 
their own programs in accordance with the demands of new conditions? 
Is there danger that the dual system of schools will lead to an ever-increasing 
dichotomy between vocational and general education and to the division 
of school people into two warring factions fruitlessly contending over 
a number of futile issues? The writer will not attempt to answer these 
questions, although he believes that they are fundamental and crucial for 
the future of American secondary education. In this report, the discussion 
must be confined to comments concerning some interesting aspects of the 
Baltimore program which are pertinent to the problem of reconstructing 
the secondary-school program, regardless of the type of school organiza- 
tion that is evolved for carrying out the revised program. 

Among the schools visited in Baltimore there were five which are in 
the system of occupational and vocational schools. Comments concerning 
three of these schools will be made in order to give some indication of 


the kinds of training programs that are in operation, 





1940] Programs of School and Community Action 


An Advanced Occupational School for Boys 

One of the most interesting vocational courses in this school is the 
junior commercial shop. The subject matter of this course consists of a 
number of jobs or projects which each pupil is required to complete satis- 
factorily. In the classroom there is a small model grocery store completely 
furnished with shelves, counter, cash register, wrapping paper, and stock. 
The classroom facilities also include typewriters, adding machines, tele- 
phones, and other items of office equipment. In the commercial training 
which is given, the objective is not to turn out skilled typists, stenographers, 
bookkeepers, and so on, but rather to give the pupils a working knowledge 
of a wide variety of commercial and clerical tasks. The following kinds 
of jobs and projects suggest the scope of the training: learning about 
postage regulations; how to use telephone and city directories and time 
tables; how to keep simple accounts, such as a checking account; how 
to use arithmetic in ordinary commercial transactions; how to operate 
duplicating machines; how to wrap and address bundles and parcels; how 
to use the telephone. From his conversation with pupils, the writer 
judges that the young people in this class are unusually enthusiastic about 


their work. 


In the five or six academic classrooms which were visited, many 
evidences were found of attempts to relate the academic work to the 
vocational training and to gear the academic subjects to the abilities and 
interests of the pupils. For example, in an arithmetic class all of the units 
of work contained problems that are typical of those which are actually met 
in such occupational activities as painting, selling newspapers, reading 
a scale, reading electric meters, making change in a retail store, and so 
on. In selecting and stating these problems the teacher of mathematics had 
called upon the instructors of various shop courses for criticism and 


assistance. 


In an English class which was visited the teacher had obviously made 
an effort to select reading materials which would be within the ability 
and in line with the interests of the pupils. This teacher made a practice 
of frequently reading aloud to her classes, because she had found that her 
pupils would listen with appreciation and interest to certain types of good 
literature (even including poetry) which they could not be induced to 
ead for themselves. In the opinion of the teacher, the pupils are acquiring 
some improvement in taste and appreciation from this kind of learning 
experience. 

A General Vocational School for Boys 


A good portion of the two hundred pupils, but by no means all, 
have 1.Q.’s below 100. The average age is fifteen to sixteen; and the 



















| 
a 


es 


-_ 








| May 


90 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 





boys, as a group, appear to be husky, healthy extroverts. A fair proportion 
of the pupils are said to have become bored with the academic curriculum 
in the regular secondary schools and to have asked voluntarily to be 
transferred to this school. In the shops of the general vocational school, 
the training given does not prepare the boys for the most highly skilled 
trades. On the other hand, there is some trade training for such specific 
occupations as house painter, electrician, and machinist of the less highly 
skilled types. Observation of the pupils in the shops indicated that almost 


all of the boys were displaying interest and diligence in their work. 


The so-called related or academic courses in this school include 
English, social studies, mathematics, science, and mechanical drawing. 
In the academic work, as in the shopwork, pupils work on individual 
units or assignments and progress at varying rates of speed. The writer 
felt that the atmosphere of the related classes was purposeful, but also 
a bit formal and restrained. There seemed to be very few opportunities 
for group discussion in most of the classes. The teachers with whom the 
writer talked apparently knew a great deal about the individuals in their 
classes and were personally interested in the boys. The abler and more 
ambitious pupils are given special incentives to exert themselves to qualify 
for transfer to a vocational school where they can get more highly 
specialized training for skilled trades. The boys who have been advanced 


from this school have made good records in vocational school. 


The counselor of the school is also the teacher of social studies. He 
is attempting to introduce into this course the study of certain social 


problems which are real and vital in the experience of pupils in this school. 


A Vocational School for Girls 
The writer got the impression that this school was very well organized 


and administered. The atmosphere of the school seemed to be very 
energetic and purposeful, yet at the same time human and happy. The 
school has an extensive program of activities (e.g., social, dramatic, musical, 
journalistic) in which a large proportion of the student body participates. 
All of the girls in this school study music, art, and social studies, in addi- 
tion to vocational subjects. In one social studies class, the writer heard a 
very lively discussion of 1940 presidential prospects. The pupils in this 
class, mostly dull-normals, were not particularly well grounded in their 
facts about national politics, but they displayed as much eagerness and 
interest in the discussion as one ordinarily finds among groups of 
intellectually gifted high-school pupils. The teacher handled this class 
with great skill. Frequent use was made of visual aids (e.g., maps, pictures, 
charts). The classroom was well equipped with reference materials and 
was attractively decorated with colorful drawings made by the pupils. 





























1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 91 


The girls were seated at tables; and the atmosphere of the classroom was 
lively, informal, and cheerful. It seemed to the writer that the teacher 
was employing teaching techniques and selecting materials from the con- 
tent of the social studies which were very well suited to the pupils with 
whom she was dealing. The impression was also strong that the pupils were 
gradually acquiring a measure of useful knowledge and developing more 
enlightened attitudes concerning the world in which they live. 


The extensive program of aptitude testing in Baltimore upon which 
great reliance is placed for the classification of pupils and for the selection 
of those for transfer from academic to occupational schools deserves 
special attention. The aptitude testing work is under the supervision of 
Albert Packard, a man who is well trained for this work and who is 
apparently proceeding in a very cautious and scientific manner. The scope 
of the aptitude testing program is indicated by the fact that more than 
ten thousand pupils are tested annually by the supervisor and his staff. 
The staff includes six or more trained people. Three or four of these 
persons spend most of their time actually administering tests, usually in 
certain schools which are designated as testing centers. The testing is 
done for a variety of purposes, but the bulk of the pupils tested are referred 
to the supervisor’s office by the academic schools as potential prospects for 
transfer to one or another of the occupational or vocational schools. 
Although a relatively small number of aptitude tests, which have been 
widely used and well standardized, make up the group of measuring 
instruments which are most commonly administered, the aptitude testing 
department has available approximately two hundred different tests for 


use when needed. 


The supervisor of aptitude testing has made a number of very com- 
prehensive and significant studies in the effort to validate various aptitude 
tests in terms of objective criteria of achievement in the occupational and 
vocational schools. Some of the multiple coefficients of coérdination for 
aptitude test scores and achievement criteria are unusually high. In 
making recommendations for pupil placement, however, the supervisor 
does not rely solely upon the aptitude test results. Besides the test results, 
he utilizes data from a record form filled out by the school, reports on 
physical examinations, and recorded observations and interview notes 
from the staff members who administered the tests. All of these data are 
analyzed and considered in arriving at a recommendation for an individual 
pupil. There is no definite formula for arriving at a conclusion. Judgment 
enters into the process of weighing and interrelating the data. Con- 
sequently, it is considered necessary for a staff member to have a long 
period of intensive training before he is qualified to draw sound inferences 











ae 








92 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


from the data which are used. The supervisor himself is very cautious 
in his recommendations and believes that it is wiser to err on the side of 
upgrading the pupil. The writer was convinced, after having gone over 
a number of actual cases upon which recommendations had been made, 
that the supervisor consistently practices what he preaches. 


Joint SponsorsHip oF A VocaTionaAL GumpaANcE Project BY THE 
Y. M. C. A. AND THE ScHooLs, Akron, On10 


In Akron, the writer learned of a program of vocational guidance 
for high-school senior boys which has several unusual features. This 
guidance project, sponsored jointly by the Y. M. C. A. and the schools, 
had been in operation for two years. In each of these years a group of 
business and professional men (approximately forty of them in 1938-1939) 
codperated actively over a period of eighteen weeks. The calendar of 
activities undertaken in 1938-1939 shows a schedule of planning conferences, 
round-table discussions, and dates for the administration of tests extending 
from November 17, 1938, to April 3, 1939, 

The ambitious scope of the program and the thoroughness with which 
it was planned is indicated by the following facts about the project: 


1. All of the laymen who served as counselors to the high-school seniors 
were given an intensive training course in preparation for their work, This 
training course included severa! meetings for instruction concerning the in- 
terpretation of school records and of test data, 

2. Each of the counselors was assigned no more than four or five boys. 
In this way, the counselors were able to become intimately acquainted with 
their counselees and to have at least three or four, and sometimes a half 
dozen or more, long individual conferences with each of their counselees, 

3. In preparation for the individual conferences, each boy was given 
a battery of tests which included an intelligence test, a social development 
test, a mechanical aptitude test, and a vocational interest test. The results 
of these tests were graphically charted on a profile sheet. Before counseling 
took place, every counselor had the assistance of a trained test expert in 


analyzing the implications of the test data. 
4. Other data made available to the counselor included complete records 


of school histories and results of a:thorough physical examination. 

In spite of the length of the program and the great amount of time 
which was required on the part of both boys and counselors, all of whom 
were participating on a purely voluntary basis, every counselor and all but 
two of the boys completed the entire schedule of activities. An evaluation 
which has been made of the project has produced evidence that almost all 
of the high-school seniors who were involved (approximately two hundred 
in 1939) were directly benefited by the program in one way or another. 
Some of the boys found jobs; some were aided in making educational and 
vocational plans for the future; others were given help in solving financial 
problems, family problems, and a host of other difficulties. In a great 
number of instances friendships were formed between the boys and their 
counselors which are expected to continue into the future and should 


— 6a lf 





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1940] Programs of School and Community Action 93 


have an important effect upon the boys’ attitudes toward their community 
and their relationships with the adults in the community. On the other 
hand, the effects upon the counselors have apparently been important in 
improving the relationships between school and community. By coming 
into intimate contact with individual boys of various types who are facing 
difficult problems of postschool adjustments, these laymen have come to 
have a keen personal interest and a realistic understanding of the difficulties 
of youth under present conditions. It seemed to the writer that the sort of 
coéperative planning and effort which entered into the Akron project 
needs to be generally encouraged as a method of codrdinating the many 
resources which exist in any community for alleviating the difficulties of 
youth in making the transition from high school to adult life. 


Another project in Akron wich has been helpful to the young people 
who are recent high-school graduates has been carried on by the school’s 
department of adult education. This department has instituted what are 
called schools for living which are conducted in, the evening in one or 
two of the high-school buildings. The school for living provides oppor- 
tunities for recent high-school graduates to participate in organized social 
activities and informal discussion groups which are designed to assist 
youth to bridge the gap between high-school and adult life. In other 
words, this new type of evening school represents an effort to provide for 
out-of-school youth a kind of orientation course in community living. 
Between two and three hundred young people are participating in this 
project. 

In some of the high schools of Akron (despite serious financial difficul- 
ties and badly overcrowded buildings) experimentation is going on for the 
purpose of reconstructing the secondary-school program for the non- 
college pupils. One of the most interesting examples of this type of 
experimentation was found in the Buchtel High School in a course in 
modified English. This course, which is labeled Contemporary English, 
is offered in grades 9 through 12. The writer visited one of the 10-A 
classes. This class was being taught by an able and experienced teacher 
who has successfully taught college preparatory pupils over a period of 
years, but who has willingly and enthusiastically entered into the work 
with the noncollege groups. The pupils in this class were presenting an 
informal play, written by the pupils, which purported to show why it 
pays to read good magazines instead of cheap and inferior ones. Although 
the acting was naturally rather amateurish and self-conscious, the players 
performed enthusiastically while the class thoroughly enjoyed the per- 
formance. When the play was over, the critical discussion of it provided 
an opportunity for the class to debate the merits of various types of 

















| May 








94 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 





magazines and to suggest a number of criteria which would be useful in 
selecting publications for leisure-time reading. Following the class dis- 
cussion, the pupils responded eagerly to the teacher’s suggestion that they 
answer any questions the visitor might like to ask about the course. From 







the pupils, the writer then learned that in this class most of the time is 
being devoted to a study of magazine and newspaper reading, radio listen- 
ing, moving pictures, and the reading and appraisal of a selection of con- 
temporary novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and biographies. The 
pupils, almost without exception, expressed enthusiasm and hearty approval 
of the course. Some of them asserted that their own leisure-time reading 
habits had been improved, and that they had become much more critical 
and selective in their choice of movies and radio programs. After the 
class period, the writer learned from the teacher that the course content 
for Contemporary English throughout the four high-school years, has 
been outlined in five mimeographed booklets. Copies of these syllabi, 
















which were obtained from the superintendent’s office, indicate that the 





English teachers have brought into the course a rather rich variety of 
teaching materials which had not previously been utilized in the high- 






school English courses. 







Epucatinc Att Youtrn Untit Ace EIGHTEEN 


Sactt Lake City, Urau 







A considerable number of interesting curriculum and guidance practices 
were found in Salt Lake City. Several of these practices will be described 
here. Other comments, concerning the program of the Horace Mann 
Lower Division High School of Salt Lake City, will be found on pages 
40-42. 

Compulsory attendance until age eighteen or graduation from high 
school has been in effect in Utah since about 1919. According to the 
statements of city and state school administrators with whom the writer 
talked, the compulsory attendance law has operated very satisfactorily in 
Salt Lake City. One kind of evidence which supports this conclusion may 
be found in the school census figures. The school census which was com- 
pleted in October, 1938, shows a total of 32,222 boys and girls between 
the ages of six and eighteen. Of these, 29,320 were enrolled full-time and 
eleven part-time in Salt Lake City schools. Another 1,604 were in other 
schools—private or outside Salt Lake City. A total of 1,266 were legally 
excused on a temporary or permanent basis. Over half of those excused 
(721) had actually fulfilled the school attendance requirement by graduat- 
ing from high school. Only twenty-one young people not attending school 
had not been legally excused; and the cases of these children were being 
carefully investigated. Furthermore, the writer was told that more than 




























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than 


1940 | Programs of School and Community Action 95 


95 per cent of the young people of high-school age are attending high 
schools, a truly astonishing record. 


In the opinion of the writer, the department of pupil personnel in 
Salt Lake City is exceptionally well organized for its work. The system 
of records used is very impressive and complete. A school history card 
is filed for every pupil; every pupil referred to the department for special 
handling has a case registration card, and difficult cases are fully recorded 
in supplementary folders. More than thirty record forms are used by 
this department. There was every evidence that these records are kept 
up to date and in good order. All of the activities of the department 
(pupil adjustment of problem cases, attendance cases, psychological test- 
ing, assignment to special classes, excusing pupils from attendance for 
cause, etc.) are approached from the social case work point of view. The 
department works closely with all city social agencies and clears its cases 
through the social-service clearinghouse. Cases are accepted by the pupil 
personnel department only on the request of the schools. The schools them- 
selves handle most of the preblem cases which arise, so that the central 
department is concerned with only the most difficult and involved cases. 
For its work with individual pupils, the department has a staff composed 
of a director, four full-time social workers (two men and two women), and 
two full-time psychologists. The case records which were examined gave 
evidence of skillful and thorough case work. In addition to work with 
individual cases, the department offers its services to teachers, and occasion- 
ally also to parents, for instruction in mental hygiene. A very close contact 
is maintained throughout the school year with the parent-teacher association. 


The school administration has recently inaugurated a vocational 
center which is located in buildings on the grounds of the West Upper 
Division High School. In this center an extensive program of training in 
skilled trades and specialized commercial occupations has been developed. 
Training for skilled trades, incidentally, is not offered in the high school. 
Such training is considered a posthigh-school activity, available only to 
those young people who are especially qualified to succeed in this work. 
Classes are offered both during the day and in the evening for recent 
high-school graduates and for qualified adults in the community. To 
effect codrdination between employers and the school and to facilitate place- 
ment of pupils, the vocational center employs codrdinators in three or 


four occupational fields. 


One valuable type of service which has recently been inaugurated at 
the vocational center is a department of aptitude testing and vocational 
counseling. Although this department was organized primarily for the 
pupils in the center, its services are also available to high-schoo! pupils 








ee 





[May 


96 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


who are referred from the schools. The number of pupils who have been 
referred by the high schools has not been very large, but it is expected 
that the numbers will increase markedly as the values of the service be- 
come better known to high-school counselors and students. Individuals 
who go to the testing and counseling department are given a compre- 
hensive battery of tests and very effective individual counseling by the 
occupational counselor, who has had graduate training in student per- 
sonnel work and in test administration and interpretation. The variety 
of tests available—both individual and group tests—is large. The test data 
and case records which were examined by the writer gave evidence of 
thorough work and cautious use of test results. 

The West Upper Division High School has instituted numerous 
practices for the modification of its program for pupils who are not going 
to college or into the skilled trade training. Numerous shop and other 
nonacademic courses offer a wide variety of elective classes for nonbookish 
students. Individual programs are arranged for pupils on the basis of 
analyses of their special abilities and interests and of their occupational 
and social needs. The highly individualized programs that are made pos- 
sible by the great variety of both academic and nonacademic courses are 
said to have largely eliminated the need for ability grouping, a practice 
which at one time was very extensively used in this school. However, 
there are a number of special classes, each under the supervision of a 
counselor-teacher, which are organized whenever the need has become 
apparent, for groups of pupils of exceedingly low ability who are classified 


as incorrigibles or problem pupils. 





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CHAPTER VII 


A Word in Conclusion 


IT SEEMS SCARCELY necessary to point out in this concluding chapter 
that almost every one of the school practices which have been described 
has a direct relationship to one or more of the “planks in a platform for 
the reconstruction of secondary education” that were outlined earlier. 
These relationships, if they have not been made sufficiently clear in the 
three preceding chapters, can be readily discerned by a quick backward 
glance over the contents of Chapter III. 

The writer is keenly and humbly conscious of the many large gaps 
that exist in both the discussion and the attempted illustration of various 
aspects of the program of reconstruction which has been advocated for 
secondary education. As to the examples that have been given of school and 
community procedures which appeared to be interesting and promising 
experimental efforts in the right direction, a few final words of clarifica- 
tion are in order. It is not the contention of the writer that these practices 
are necessarily the best ones that can be devised for the solution of youth 
problems. It is considered entirely possible that some of them may, in 
the acid test of experience during the next few years, prove to be quite 
unsatisfactory. On the other hand, the writer believes that in some 
instances (which have been indicated in the text) certain kinds of new 
school and community practices have already convincingly demonstrated 
their soundness and effectiveness. In the last analysis, however, the most 
important single fact about the schools and communities which have been 
described is that they are all doing something, though in widely varying 
measure, in the effort to find beter ways of preparing to-day’s youth to 
meet their problems. In ail of these localities, as well as in others he 
visited, the writer invariably found -at least a few pioneering spirits who 
were not afraid to face the consequences of new times and who were 
energetically experimenting with new measures. 

One does not have to be a Sherlock Holmes to detect evidences of 
the inertia, the shrinking from change, or the very real problems of 
finance and personnel which exist in all too many of our secondary 
schools. Had not the writer deliberately chosen to delineate only the 
symbols of constructive effort and encouraging progress, his picture of 
secondary education might well have been somewhat tinged with somber 
hues. Nevertheless, although he has no desire to paint too rosy a scene, 
the writer does believe that secondary education is beginning to experience 
a sufficiently strong surge of new life and adventuresome spirit to warrant 
the bestowal of a few bouquets to offset some of the many brickbats 


97 














+ eee, 


98 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


which have been heaved from all directions. This viewpoint is perhaps 
based upon the hunch that the time has come when the sending of sweet 
smelling posies to the patient may help him face the major operation which 
is still in the offing. 

Four of the most important of the numerous gaps which are to be 
found in the writer’s discussion and illustration of the new tasks and 
obligations of secondary schools are thorough consideration (1) of the 
problem of educating teachers to perform their functions in an expanding 
secondary-school program; (2) of the relationship, present and potential, 
of secondary schools to federal training programs in C.C.C. camps and 
N.Y.A. resident centers; (3) of the role of the vocational and trade schools 
in the reconstruction of secondary education; (4) of the unique contribu- 
tions which the junior college can make to the solution of the youth 
problem. These four problems are far too large and complicated to be 
treated with much more than a passing reference in these pages. Strong 
emphasis, nonetheless, must be placed upon the fact that all of these 
problems are, and will become, increasingly vital to the interests of junior 
and senior high-school administrators and teachers. 

Fortunately, all of the foregoing problems have been and are being 
subjected to intensive study by a number of national study commissions 
and policy-making professional groups. The first problem, for instance, 
is being attacked on a broad scale by the Commission on Teacher Educa- 
tion of the American Council on Education and thirty-four co6perating 
school systems and teacher-training institutions. The American Youth 
Commission and several national educational organizations are giving 
serious attention to the second problem; and it is reasonable to hope for 
the early publication of a number of useful documents dealing with this 
problem. 

As to the consideration of the future role of the trade and vocational 
schools, much valuable material has already been made available in one 
of the reports of the Federal Government’s Advisory Committee on 
Education. It is the writer’s opinion, based upon the examination of a 
preliminary draft, that a forthcoming book by Howard M. Bell, of the 

American Youth Commission, will also throw a great deal of light upon 
this particular problem, as well as upon the broad question of what should 
be done in all secondary schools and communities to assist and hasten 
the occupational adjustment of youth. This publication will make exten- 
sive use, as a basis for some interesting generalizations and for illustrative 


purposes, of the activities and experiences of eight experimental, occupa- 


Mdbn 1). Russell and Associates, Vocational Education. Staff Study No. 8. Prepared for the Advisory 
S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.: 1938 p. 324. 


Committee. U 





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the 
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{visory 


1940 | A Word in Conclusion 99 


tional adjustment projects which were sponsored jointly for a period of 
eighteen months by the American Youth Commission and the United 


States Employment Service. Four of these projects, incidentally, were 
carried on in rural counties. Consequently, the projected book will include 
considerable data on problems and procedures pertaining to the occupational 
training and adjustment of rural youth. This is an aspect of school and 
community action for solving the youth problem which has been in- 
adequately dealt with by all too many authors, including the present 
writer. Mr. Bell’s book, which will probably be published within the 
next few months, should therefore be of great interest and real value to 


both rural and urban schoolmen. 


During the early part of the present year, an exploratory study which 
has a bearing upon the last of the four major problems listed above was 
launched under the auspices of the American Association of Junior 
Colleges. This is the study of terminal and semiprofessional training at 
the junior-college level which is directed by the Association’s Commission 
on Junior-College Terminal Education. The study has as its chief objec- 
tives: (1) the summarization of what is now being done in junior-college 
terminal courses both in general education and in vocational training; (2) 
the formulation of a policy for these types of training in the junior 
college; and (3) the statement of recommendations which will be helpful 
in guiding junior colleges in the expansion of terminal curricula. The 
need for such a project is apparent when it is realized that a very large 
proportion (approximately two-thirds, according to one estimate) of the 
junior-college graduates do not continue their education in four-year 
colleges. The published results of the study will doubtless help to clarify 
the possible unique contributions which junior colleges can make to 
secondary education, as well as the kind of vital relationships these institu- 
tions can establish with other types of secondary schools. To the findings 
expected from the study which has just been described, there will be added 
in the course of time other data on problems of guidance and terminal 
education from the Codperative Study in General Education. The latter 
study, directed by a committee of the American Council on Education, 
involves the active participation of twenty-two junior and four-year 
colleges. All of the junior colleges and several of the four-year institutions 
are seriously concerned about the problem of terminal courses in both 
general and vocational education at the junior-college level. 


In his visits to schools in several sections of the country, the writer 
had the opportunity of visiting more than a dozen junior colleges. Most 
of these, including six junior colleges in California (Sacramento, San 
Francisco, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San Bernardino), the 























































100 National Association of Secondary-School Princpals | May 
Phoenix Arizona Junior College, the Scranton-Keystone Junior College 
of La Plume, Pennsylvania, and the Rochester (New York) Athenaeum and 
Mechanics Institute, were offering terminal or semiprofessional courses. 
In many instances, both the number and proportion of the students taking 
these courses had been increasing significantly during the past few years. 
In one instance (the Institute located in Rochester), all of the students are 
enrolled in semiprofessional curricula which aim to produce both occupa- 
tional proficiency and adjustability and a well-rounded general education. 
The Institute grants no degrees and guarantees no credit for transfer to 
four-year colleges, yet it experiences no difficulty in getting well-qualified 
students who are strongly motivated by the kinds of training offered. 
This Institute, by the way, had the most comprehensive and functionally 
useful student personnel records available for an entire student body that 
the writer found in any school he visited. It was also the school in which 
the many potentialities of the use of anecdotal or observational records 
were brought most nearly to realization. 


Aside from the few casual comments in the foregoing paragraph, 
the writer will not attempt to summarize the many interesting guidance 
and curriculum practices in junior colleges he observed which have a 
bearing upon the changing secondary-school program. In the first place, 
space limitations will not permit such an attempt. Secondly, the writer 
believes that this job will soon be very much more adequately done than 
he could possibly do it by a man who is at present engaged in the visitation 
of a large number of junior colleges throughout the country. The man 
who is making this extensive survey, Byron S. Hollingshead, president 
of the Scranton-Keystone Junior College, of La Plume, Pennsylvania, is 
serving temporarily as a consultant to the General Education Board. It is 
anticipated that a report on his survey will be published next autumn, 
probably by the American Association of Junior Colleges. Dr. Hollings- 
head’s report should, in the writer's judgment, be almost as necessary 
and valuable to junior and senior high-school people as it will be to 


junior-college administrators and teachers. 














BOOK NOTES 








THe INetis LecrurE—1940. Work, Wages, and Education. By Aubrey W. 
Williams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940. Pp. 57. $1.00. 
The administrator of the National Youth Administration emphasizes the 

need of American youth for productive work and the place not only of educa- 

tion but also of the body politic in helping to solve their pressing problems. 


ANNETT, THOMAS, Music in the Rural School. Boston: The Boston Music Com- 
pany, 1938, Pp. viii+-123. 

Mr. Annett devotes attention to specific skills and problems within the 
areas of general methods, singing in rural schools, time and rhythm, listening 
lessons, instrumental music, creative music, music and other subjects, commu- 
nity singing, and theory. 


STURTEVANT, STRANG, AND McKim. Trends in Student Personnel Work. New 
York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 
1940. Pp. 110. $1.85. 

The authors describe the positions of deans of women and deans of girls 
in high schools and higher institutions of learning over a period of ten years. 
The academic preparation of deans is discussed, and the teaching load, salary, 
organization and staff, and student personnel functions. 


CANNON, FANNY VENABLE. Playing Fair. New York: E. P. Dutton and Com- 
pany, Inc., 1940. Pp. 112. $1.00. 

Playing Fair contains four realistic dramas for high-school girls and boys. 
These are “Playing Fair,” “It’s a Poor Rule!” “Persuasion Is Better Than 
Force,” “Coals of Fire.” Each play has tolerance as its central theme. None 
of the plays requires fewer than six nor more than eight principal characters. 
Production is possible on an elaborate or a single scale as local conditions 
permit, according to the author’s statement. 


WE?rZEL, WILLIAM A. The Teacher and Civil Liberty. Cambridge: Graduate 

School of Education, Harvard University, 1939. Pp. 59. 

Written in observance of the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the birth 
of the Nation under the Constitution, The Teacher and Civil Liberty is an 
essay on the relation of public education to the orderly processes of democracy. 
Among the topics discussed are the meaning of democracy, its pena proc- 
esses, a definition of public education, freedom to think and express thought, 
freedom of assembly and right to participate in public affairs, freedom to 
choose and practice a vocation. 


BUELL AND STRAWINSKI. Reading with Clues. Chicago: Benjamin H. Sanborn 
and Company, 1940. Pp. ix+459. 

Containing twenty stories and twenty articles of varying length and diffi- 
culty, this volume is comprised of materials in familiar settings and modern 
tempo designed to be of interest to high-school pupils. Each selection is fol- 
lowed by three questions covering three phases of its content—structural, 
literary, and social. The clues thus provided are intended not only to increase 
the pupil’s understanding and pleasure of the moment but also to help him 
fd the significant features in the materials he will be reading the rest of 


his life. 


Myers, LitrLe, AND Robinson. Planning Your Future. Revised edition. New 

York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1940. Pp. x+549. $1.64. 

The authors describe the purposes of this occupational civic textbook as 
follows: (1) to give young people a start in thinking seriously and intelli- 
gently about educational and vocational plans for the future; (2) to aid them 
in accumulating information which will serve as a basis for such thinking; 


101 














[ May 





102 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 






(3) to broaden their knowledge and appreciation of the world’s work and how 
it is done. The volume is divided into four parts: The World of Occupations, 
Occupations in Your Community, Facts Every Worker Should Know, and Find- 








ing Your Place. 














Teaching. Champaign, Illinois: 





SanrorD, Happerron, McHarry. Student 

Stipes Publishing Company, 1940. Pp. 164. 

The authors explain the purpose of student teaching, which is to provide 
an opportunity for the furthering of both the academic and professional train- 
ing, and, more important, to give an opportunity for the effective, functional 
fusion of the two. After describing the correct professional attitude of stu- 
dent teachers—which includes the quoting of the Code of Ethics of the Na- 
tional Education Association, the authors present the various phases of stu- 
dent teaching in the order in which these are likely to be experienced: observa- 
tion, participation, preparation for teaching, and teaching. 













WILLIAMS AND Hupnarn. Schools for Democracy. Chicago: National Congress 






of Parents and Teachers, 1939. Pp. 239. 

Opening with a Foreword—*The Future Belongs to Youth’”—by Charles A. 
Beard, the book is a compilation of fourteen articles on education in a democ- 
racy by prominent men and women in the field: Counts, Knight, Wofford, 
Courtis, Donovan, Reavis, Holy, Strayer, Merrill, Kline, Studebaker, Pettin- 
gill, Samuelson. They discuss public education in the light of its growth, 
what it is trying to do, teaching as a profession, organization and administra- 
tion, school plants, financial support, libraries, community resources, parent- 


teacher associations, lifelong learning, and looking ahead. 





















ARNOLD AND BANKS. Building Our Life Together. Evanston, [linois: Row, 
Peterson and Company, 1939. Pp. 744. $1.60. Illustrated by Frederick E. 


=r 







Seyfarth. 
Building Our Life Together presents the essentials of good citizenship in 


units that embrace (1) The Plan of Our Work Together, (2) Our Social Foun- 
dations, (3) Our Economic Foundations, (4) The Builders and How They 
Take Part in Government, (5) The Machinery of Government, (6) The Cost 
of Government, (7) The Tasks of the Builders, (8) Each Builds His Own 
Life. In addition, there are suggested references for the teacher’s and the 
student’s libraries, and the text of The Constitution of the United States is 









given in full. 







HANDSCHIN, CHARLES H, Modern Language Teaching. New York: World Book 
Company, 1940. Pp, vi+458. 

The author states that the purpose of this book is “to furnish the modern 
language teacher with a survey of his field; the latest professional thought on 
its objectives, methods, and materials; and, as far as they concern him, the 
thought of the psychologist and the educationist concerning the method and 
the place of modern language teaching in our schools.” 

Among the topics covered in the fifteen chapters ef the book are history 
and survey of courses, objectives, general method, pronunciation and other 
oral work, teaching grammar, word and idiom study, reading ability, visual 
materials, student activities, administrative problems, teacher training. 











“Sl Peies.. 












English, French, German. 





DEMIASHKEVICH, MICHAEL. The National Mind: 

New York: American Book Company, 1938, Pp. xii+508. 

The present volume deals with the national mind and character of the 
English, the French, and the Germans, the fundamental thesis being that this 
can be accomplished through the study of comparative education, literature, 
politics, philosophy, and fine arts. The author believes that the best expression 
of national characteristics lies in the scale of values held by each of the 
peoples, in the loyalties which dictate their preferences and sacrifices. 

The author describes his work as “an attempt to investigate a corner of a 
liason field—foundations of national leadership, and submits it to the atten- 

















300k 


dern 
it on 
, the 

and 


story 
other 
isual 


1940 | Book Notes 


tion of those who are interested in education, international relations, compara- 
tive government, or comparative literature, and in the integration of these 


fields.” 


GRUENBERG AND KAUKONEN. High Schools and Sex Education. Bulletin No. 72 
revised. Washington, D. C.: United States Public Health Service, 1940. 
Pp. xix+110. 20 cents. 

Part I of this manual is devoted to the planning and organization of sex 
education. It discusses sex education in the secondary schools; methods and 
supplementary devices; teacher selection, preparation, and development. 
Part II is about sex education in the subjects of the curriculum. It suggests 
the following courses as desirable channels for disseminating information: 
biology, general science, physiology and hygiene, physical education, home eco- 
nomics, social studies, and English. Four Appendices give a general reading 
list for teachers and school officials, a list for students, pamphlets and visual 
aids, and a suggested outline of a course for teachers on sex education in 


secondary schools. 


AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. Reading in General Education. A Report of 
the Committee on Reading in General Education. Edited by William S. 
Gray. Washington, D. C.: the Council, 1940. Pp. xiii+465. $2.50. 
Giving especial attention to reading in high schools and junior colleges, 

this volume—the work of a group of ten specialists, two research assistants, 

and various consultants—is an exploratory and critical study of reading. 

Broad topics selected for consideration comprise the following: social 
change, general education, and reading; factors influencing reading efficiency ; 
relation of reading to other forms of learning; approach to reading through 
analysis of means; problems in content fields; our culture and the teaching 
of literature; interests, tastes, and difficulties in reading; diagnosis, remedia- 
tion, appraisal techniques; and the library. 

The objective has been “to identify basic issues, to describe current prac- 
tices and trends, to review the results of related studies and their implica- 
tions, and to define the problems which merit further study.’ 


Education for Democracy. The Proceedings of the Congress on Education for 
Democracy. Edited by Thomas H. Briggs and Will French. New York: 
Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1939. 
Pp. xii+467. $2.50. 

Opening with a letter from President Roosevelt, Education for Democracy 
contains the addresses of many men and women prominent in education, reli- 
gion, industry, and agriculture, not only in the United States but in other 
lands. The broad range of subjects and meetings as published classify into 
nine areas: democracy and its challenge, democracy in other lands, the con- 
tribution of religion to democracy, educational opportunities for rural youth, 
higher education and adult education, democracy at werk, democracy moves 
forward, seminars, looking forward. 

Representatives of twenty-eight lay organizations, national in scope, par- 
ticipated in the congress, matching an equal number of educator-delegates 
from all fields of education, Nicholas Murray Butler was honorary chairman. 


JouN Dewey Society, Fourth Yearbook. Teachers for Democracy. Editors 

George E, Axtelle and William W. Wattenberg. New York: D. Appleton- 

~ Century Company, 1940. Pp. xii+412. $2.50. 

The present volume carries the educational tradition expressed in previ- 
ous yearbooks into the area of teacher education and therefore stresses certain 
fundamental propositions. “Among these are the necessity for preserving de- 
mocracy by means of an appropriate form of education, the need for deeper 
understanding of the important forces influencing American life and education, 
the essential necessity of a closer relation of education to community life, 
and the assumption that the entire life and program of an institution is the 
potent influence in determining the values and actions of its graduates.” 












stan eg 








National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 





104 


The editors, Axtelle and Wattenberg, together with eleven contributing 


editors have supplied fourteen chapters dealing with basic considerations as 


follows: the status of teachers, the task before them, their abilities, demo- 
cratic concepts of learning and teaching, life and program and democratic 
control and administration in institutions for teacher education, selection and 
guidance, general education, professional subject matter, organizing the pro- 
gram, in-service education, education of college teachers, social context of the 
profession, social implementation of democracy and education. 

The education of teachers was pronounced America’s first education prob- 
lem at the February, 1939, meeting of the American Association of School Ad- 
ministrators. This book should, therefore, engage the attention of all persons 
interested in their communities and in their Nation—parents and others, as 


well as teachers and potential teachers. 


EpUCATIONAL Poricres COMMISSION. Education and Economic Well-being in 
Washington, D. C.: National Education Associa- 


American Democracy. 
of School Administrators, 1940. 


tion and the American Association 

50 cents. 

Recognizing that the economic phase of life is inextricably interwoven 
with other phases of human life—spiritual, ethical, intellectual—the commis- 
sion states the belief that it is more accurate to say that “this volume is 
mainly concerned with, rather than confined to, the interrelationships of edu- 
cation and economic well-being in American democracy.” 

The constructive program for action here proposed invites appraisal from 
the point of view of long-term, rather than immediate, considerations. The 
volume deals with questions such as the following: 

“What factors contribute to high productivity in an economy such as ours, 
and what contribution does education make to such productivity? Does the 
improvement and strengthening of our national economy involve an improved 
program of public education? What kind of educational opportunity for youth 
is socially desirable? What kind and amount of education will result in maxi- 
mum economic well-being? To what extent are children and youths of superior 
ability denied educational opportunity because of lack of family finances? 
What effect has such denial on productivity and national income? To what 
extent will an educational program, right in kind and amount, tend to amor- 
tize its cost? Has the nation reached a period when it appears that basic eco- 
nomic limitations require restriction of the further development of free edu- 
cation? Or does it appear wise, from a purely economic point of view, further 
to extend this expression of the American ideal of equality of opportunity ?” 


Foster, WETZEL, AND LAWRENCE. High School Supervision. New York: Thomas 

Nelson and Sons, 1939. Pp. xi+283. $2.25. 

The author, Mr. Foster, states the aim of supervision as being that of 
pupil learning, not improvement of teaching. Therefore, he stresses the fact 
that “Democratic supervision is the supervision not primarily of teaching but 
of learning, and of teaching only because it conduces to good learning.” 

Thus basing the conception of supervision on the ideal of improvement 
of learning, the author and his collaborators offer concrete guidance from all 
practical viewpoints and in all practical phases. The work is classified into 
four major divisions which deal with supervision in reference to (1) nature 
and personnel, (2) program, (3) classroom visitation, (4) creative character. 

Feeling that a definition would better be left to unfold itself and come 
at the close of the readers’ experience and study, the author explains the mean- 
ing of supervision: 

“Doubtless as the subject has developed, we have been conscious of two 
major principles or concepts, like two valleys merging into one larger one. 
These two are the same two that form the landscape in the world of educa- 
tion in general—the scientific and the philosophical. The science of supervision 
has sought for the answer to the question ‘What?’ the philosophy of supervi- 
sion has concerned itself with the ‘Why?’ From these two there results the 
art of supervision, dealing with the ‘How.’ .. . Supervision is the art which 
results from the fusion of the science of supervision and the philosophy of 
supervision. ... It is not a slave to devices and rules, but master of them for 






















































No 






Pa 







Pow 




















fact 
but 


nent 
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into 
ture 
icter. 
come 
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1940} Book Notes 105 


the expression of its creative genius. Creative supervision is the art which 
does not reject science but proceeds through it to the realization of rational 
objectives. In its creativeness lies the hope for progressiveness in supervision.” 


BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED 


Bonirace, Coronet J. J. Riding. A manual of Horsemanship for Beginners. 
New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1940. Pp. 86. $1.00. 


CurTIs, Francis D.; CALDWELL, Oris W.; AND SHERMAN, NINA HENRY. Every- 
day Biology. Boston, Massachusetts: Ginn and Company, 1940. Pp. xi+ 
698. $1.92. 


FREILICH, AARON; SHANHOLT, Henry H.; AND Georges, Joe. S. Elementary 
Algebra. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1940. Pp. v+544425. $1.36. 


Hittyer, V. M. A Child’s History of the World. Illustrations by Carle Michel 
Boog and M. S. Wright. Student’s Edition. New York: D. Appleton-Cen- 
tury Company, I[nc., 1935. Pp. xxvi+480. $1.32. 


HILTON, EvUGENE. Problems and Values of Today. Boston: Little, Brown and 
Company, 1940. Pp. xvi+742. $1.96. 


MARRAN, Ray J. Table Games. How to Make and How to Play Them. New 
York: A. S. Barnes and Company, Inc., 1939. Pp. 122. $1.50. 


Mason, Bernard S. Roping. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1940. 
Pp. 138. $1.00. 


NATIONAL SECTION OF WOMEN’S ATHLETICS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR HEALTH, PuysicAL EDUCATION, AND RECREATION. The official Sports 
Library for Women published by A. S. Barnes and Company, New York, 
has available the following pamphlets: 3 
“Badminton for Women 1940-1945,” pp. 64; “Field Hockey Guide for 
Women and Girls Containing the Revised Rules 1940,” pp. 91; “Individual 
Sports (Archery, Tennis, Riding, Golf) 1940-1941,” pp. 119; ‘“Recrea- 
tional Games and Sports (Track and Field) 1940-1941,” pp. 109; “Soft- 
ball and Volleyball with Official Rules 1940,” pp. 95. 25 cents each. 


NoreN, ArtHuR T. Softball. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1940. 
Pp. xv-+108. $1.00. 


PAYNE, Mitprep M. What Do I Do Now? A Guide to Correct Conduct and 
Dress for Business People. New York: The Gregg Publishing Company, 
1940. Pp. vii+120. 76 cents. 


POWDERMAKER, THERESE. Visual Aids for Teaching Sports. Twenty-four sports 
ictured. Illustrations by Kate Rowland. New York: A. S. Barnes and 


Yompany, 1940. Pp. 26. 


REICHART, NATALIE AND KEASEY, GILMAN. Archery. New York: A. 8. Barnes 
and Company, 1940. Pp. 95. $1.00. 


SALISBURY AND LEONARD. Thinking in English. Book One. Chicago: Seott, 
Foresman and Company, 1940. Pp. 350. $1.12. 


ScHorLiInG, RALEIGH; CLARK, JOHN R.; Porter, Mary; AND Derapy, CarR- 
Rott F. Learning to Compute. Book One and Book Two. Yonkers-on-Hud- 
son, New York: World Book Company, 1940. Pp. viii-+104. 32 cents each. 


STANWICK, Tab. Lacrosse. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1940. Pp. 
xii+92. $1.00. 








SE ee 





[May 


106 National Association of Secondary-School Principals 


THEOBALD, Harry C. Trozos De La Historia Del Sudoeste. Illustrated by Helen 
Torrey. New York: Silver Burdett Company. Pp. v+201. $1.24. 


TurNER, C. E. Principles of Health Education. New York: D. C. Heath and 
Company, 1939. Pp. xvi+335. 

WASHBURNE, JouNn N. Washburne Social-Adjustment Inventory. Yonkers-on 
Hudson, New York: World Book Company, 1940. Package of 25, net $1.30. 
Specimen Set, 15 cents. 


WaTkKINS, Dwicut Everett AND Karr, HARRISON M. Stage Fright and What 
to Do About It. The Symptoms, Causes and Remedies. Boston, Mas- 


sachusetts: Expression Company, 1940. Pp. 110. $1.50. 


YounG, BARTON, JOHNSTON. Citizens at Work. New York: McGraw-Hill Book 
Company, Inc., 1940. Pp. xx+402. $1.32. 





Important Notice 


In order that members may be informed of the books tenta- 
tively selected for the Book-of-the-Quarter Club, a list will be 
published in each issue of THe Buttetin. The books now 


being considered by the Reviewing Board are listed below: 
Myers and Kirer: Problems in Public School Supervision. 
Prentice-Hall, Inc. 


Witnam: Problem Studies in School Administration. Prentice- 
Hall, Inc. 

Nosie: Practical Measurements for School Administrators. 
International Textbook Company. 

Crarke: Life Planning and Building. International Textbook 
Company. 


Morrison: The Curriculum of the Common School. The 


University of Chicago Press. 














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NEWS ITEMS 








NATIONAL Honor SocirETIES—-IMPoRTANT Norice!—The Sixth Handbook 
of the National Honor Society is just off press. This two hundred page book 
contains complete information about the organization from its beginning. It 
describes activities, assembly programs, constitutions, group studies, guidance 
and orientation, journalistic activities, methods of selecting members, rituals 
of induction, price list of emblems, and other items of concern to all honor 


societies. The price is one dollar. 


NEBRASKA OUT FRONT.—New officers of the Department of Superintend- 
ents and Principals of the Nebraska State Teachers Association are: President 
—Principal Leo Black, Nebraska City; Vice President— Superintendent Van 
Miller, Overton; and Secretary-Treasurer—Superintendent J. R. Vinckel, 
Blair. Nebraska’s membership in both the state and national association is 
now the largest it has ever been, according to Van Miller, who is retiring 
from his office as secretary after a six-year period of service. 


SPECIAL GUIDANCE AND TRAINING HELPS C.C.C. ENROLLEES GET JOBS.—Dur- 
ing a six-week period this year, approximately eighty-five hundred C.C.C. enrol- 
lees were discharged to accept employment, an increase of about one third over 
previous periods. In releasing this information, Commissioner Studebaker 
states that while improved employment conditions have helped, much credit 
for the increased back-to-work movement should go to the C.C.C. educational 
committee and officials who conducted an intensive drive to train enrollees 


and to place them in jobs. 


WANTED: A JoB!—This is the title of a booklet issued by the American 
Council on Education, Washington, D. C. Prepared by a conference of business 
and industrial personnel officers, the booklet is a statement of personal char- 
acteristics necessary for job success: character, enjoyment of work, initiative, 
mental! alertness, judgment, getting along with people, health, appearance 
and manner, ambition and objectives, social and community responsibility. Also 
a suggested rating scale based on the afore-mentioned characteristics is sup- 
plied. The pamphlet sells at five cents a copy. Discounts are given on quantity 


orders. 


UniITeD States Pusiic HEALTH SERvVICE.—The pamphlet We Grow Up 
brings up to date two earlier publications entitled Healthy, Happy Woman- 
hood and Keeping Fit. This illustrated booklet deals with four phases of life: 
from infancy to maturity, the growth of new life, the sex instinct, men and 
women to-day. The office of the Surgeon General of the United States invites 
your critical evaluation of its effectiveness as an educational instrument for 
adolescents between the ages of twelve and fifteen years. Copies of We Grow 
Up are obtainable from the United States Government Printing Office, Wash- 


ington, D. C. 


N.Y.A. CAMPAIGN FOR JOBS IN ILLINOIS.—More than eleven thousand 
jobs for young persons in Illinois were secured during a sustained five weeks’ 
drive, according to the state N.Y.A. administrator. The total number of jobs 
obtained is four times the original goal of twenty-five hundred set at the start 
of the drive. During the job hunt, which was for young men and women be- 
tween the ages of eighteen and twenty-five years, youth-employer clinics were 
held in key cities throughout the state. N.Y.A. field representatives visited 
employers, and youths were urged to make personal visits to offices, factories, 
and employment agencies in a well-rounded drive. 


Puptts WHo Succeep IN CoLLEGE.—‘Tke popular high-school pupil is a 
good college risk if his record shows that he has maintained certifiable grades, 
and his teachers have found him industrious and coéperative,” said Virginia 


107 











ST ae 





* 





108 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 








De M. Raacke, college advisor of a Philadelphia High School, before educators 
at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annual Schoolmen’s Week. Other types 
of students whom she listed as those who will succeed in college are: the ex- 
ceptional pupil of high intelligence and pronounced leadership, the shy pupil 
without leadership but of brilliant scholarship, the plodding pupil, and the 
popular pupil possessing intelligence and a variety of interests— The New 
York Times. 

DISTRIBUTIVE CoURSE FOR LINCOLN Hiau.—The Advocate, student news- 
paper, states that a distributive course approved by the Lincoln, Nebraska, 
3oard of Education will be added to the curriculum to provide training for 
retail selling in stores of all types. The subjects taken in the sophomore year 
will be similar to those in other courses, but in the junior and senior years the 
pupils will attend only the first three periods of school and the remainder 
of the day will be spent gaining firsthand experience in an actual selling posi. 
tion. The pupils will be placed by the instructor in Lincoln firms which have 
offered positions for this purpose, and they will receive pay for their work. 
This distributive course will be partially subsidized through the George 


Deen Act. 


Srupents EvaLuate Own Capasitittes.—‘One of the major objectives 
of the guidance program in Cristobal High School is to train pupils better to 
evaluate their own capabilities and to judge their own achievement in any 
field of endeavor in relation to the achievements of others in that field and 
thus make for better mental and social adjustment,” state C. L. Rice and 
T. F. Hotz in the School Bulletin of the Division of Schools, Panama Canal 
Zone. Questionnaires were distributed to every Senior High School pupil in 
an effort to find the pupil’s ability to estimate his own achievements in his 
school work in relation to the marks recorded on his report card. The fact that 
81 per cent of the pupils received as good or better marks than they had ex 
pected indicates the degree to which they are being trained in self-evaluation. 
The counselor finds the survey a valuable basis for pupil-teacher conferences 
to bring about adjustments, especially for those pupils who over or under- 
estimated their achievements by more than one letter. 






































“P.M.” ScHEDULED FoR JUNE 1.—A novel paper which presents all news 
objectively ; contains no advertising; has no editorial policy but takes a stand 
on each separate issue as it arises; carries a consumers’ service; and includes 
sections on labor news, little-known government services, and the youth move- 
ment is scheduled for distribution on June 1. It will be published by a small 
group of people, mostly New Yorkers, some in the field of journalism, others 
wealthy enough to finance the venture. Ralph McAlister Ingersoll, who started 
Fortune and Life on their way to fame, is potential editor. 

About the size of Life, printed on semiglazed paper, and stapled or sewed 
together, the paper will be printed each evening, and will cost a nickel. P. M. 
(its temporary name) will be the only newspaper to present the complete pro- 
grams of all ten New York radio stations. in addition, the editors plan to 
summarize speeches, to review radio shows and other newspapers, and to dis- 
cuss suppressed news items.—Horace Mann Record, Horace Mann School for 
Girls, New York City. 

ROUND PEGS, SQUARE HOLES, AND NO HOLES AT ALL.—Occupational malad- 

justment has been compared to silicosis as an occupational disease by Floyd W. 
Reeves, director of the American Youth Commission. In a recent news story, 
Mr. Reeves stressed the need for community guidance or adjustment programs 
as an aid to young workers in finding the type of work for which they are 
fitted. 
As a result of the Commission’s study during which twenty thousand 
individual youths were interviewed, Mr. Reeves declared that the vast major- 
ity of these youths had neither ideas nor plans about their vocational future 
to enable them to make an intelligent search for the right job. 

“Those familiar with the problems which confront our boys and girls in 
the transition from school to useful employment recognize the need for action 
now. At present, the absence of vocational guidance and community planning 
for youth is both wasteful and shortsighted. Nothing is more debilitating to 


character than unemployment.” 









































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1940] News Items 109 


STUDY OF GERMAN LANGUAGE pRops.—“For the sixth consecutive year, or 
ever since the rise of Adolph Hitler, the study of German has dropped in the 
New York City school system,” according to a news item carried in the April 
18 issue of the New York Times. “To-day, the enrollment in German is 50 per 
cent less than it was in 1934.” On the other hand is the attitude of the Educa- 
tional Policies Commission at Washington, in its pamphlet “American Educa- 
tion and the War in Europe”: “The schools and other educational institutions 
should do everything possible to prevent the disastrous activities which oe- 
curred during the last war when some reputable scholars joined with the 
uneducated demagogues in a mad rush to deery and malign the cultural con- 
tributions of entire peoples. All the belligerent nations have made significant 
cultural and human contributions to American life. These contributions 
should be emphasized in the discussion of appropriate topics. For example, it 
is unwise and unfair to undervalue the contributions a a nation to music, 
art, literature, and science merely because the government of that nation is 
waging an unjust war.” 


THE SOUND OF HISTORY.—“Then Came War: 1939” is the title of a set of 
phonograph recordings, the issuance of which was sponsored by the World 
Book Company, Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. In a pamphlet on the use in 
schools of “Then Came War: 1939,” Alexander J. Stoddard writes: “The story 
told on these records is necessarily a condensed one requiring just twenty-five 
minutes for the telling. It sweeps rapidly over the years from November 11, 
1918, to September, 1938, and then quickly brings us through the events of 
the succeeding eleven months to August, 1939... . The choice and arrangement 
of the material of “Then Came War: 1939” are the work of Elmer Davis, a 
leading student of current affairs, author, and radio analyst and commentator, 
assisted by a group of technical experts.” In six parts, the album of records 
is suited to use at the secondary-school level; it is equally well suited for 
college students and for adults. Mr. Stoddard suggests that anyone concerned 
with the educational program should read the bulletin, “American Education 
and the War in Europe,” which was reprinted in The Journal of the N. E. A., 
November, 1939, or which is obtainable by sending ten cents to the Educational 
Policies Commission, Washington, D. C. 


P.Q.’8 FOR PROSPECTIVE PEDAGOGUES.—“Is he attractive or unattractive in 
appearance? Is he a likable person? Is his voice irritating or pleasant? Is he 
touchy, sensitive to criticism, easily upset?” These are some of the questions on 
the personality quotient sheet by which teaching candidates are selected for 
appointments at Providence, Rhode Island, public school system. To determine 
his standing on the superintendent’s recommended list, each applicant is in- 
terviewed by an informal committee of five. To reduce human fallibility of 
judgment to a minimum, the members of this committee are drawn from the 
superintendent's staff and supervisory officers, principals and assistant prin- 
cipals of junior and senicr high schools. The personnel changes from day to 
day. The applicant usually gives a résumé of his preparation and training for 
the work of a teacher, discusses with the committee problems of education 
and teaching, and informs the committee of his intellectual, physical, and 
aesthetic interests. After the interview is closed and the candidate has left, 
each member of the committee records his impressions on a form which may 
be scored on a testing machine. The final score on personality is the average 
mark based on the individual scores of the committee. Prospective teachers 
are finding out that teaching is not all reading, writing, and ’rithmetic.—T'he 
Christian Science Monitor. 

” 

PAN-AMERICAN Goop NEIGHBOR ForuM.—Established for the purpose of 
promoting peace and good will on the American continents, the Good Neighbor 
Forum of Central Y. M. C. A. College in its semi-annual report states that it 
stands for the equal rights of all American nations, races, and creeds, as de- 
cided upon by the Lima conference, for political, economic, and cultural coép- 
eration, and for arbitration and conciliation of differences. It stands, further- 
more, for similar codperation with all peaceful nations of the world. 

The activities of the forum comprise a lecture section, a research section, 
and a so-called diplomatic section. Two Spanish classes, one in the college and 





















110 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 


one in the high school, have begun correspondence with twenty-five students 
of the Good Neighbor Forum of the National University of Panama. Books 
have been sent and received by the students of the two groups. Discussions 
about the Monroe Doctrine and the Decision made at Lima concerning the 
friendly coéperation of all the races and creeds on this continent are under 
way and have done much to contribute to a lively correspondence. Also in 
connection with the College Idea Exchange of the Air, the director of the 
forum discussed Pan-American issues over station WAAF. The forum has 
given counsel to individual students of the college about various questions 
regarding Latin America. Furthermore it has on several occasions sent 
lecturers and singers to social clubs and assemblies of the college and high 
school and has coéperated with the Student Activities Fair in November, 
1939, by providing a booth in which were displayed Latin American art 
objects and printed material. Also there was a fiesta organized both by the 


Student Council and the Forum. 


TEACHER EXCHANGES.—“How would you like to exchange one or two of 
your teachers for an outstanding teacher in another section of our own coun- 
try, in Canada, or in Latin America?” asks Frederick Eby, Jr., who further 
states, “Your Spanish teacher would gain much more by living and teaching a 
year in South America, Mexico, or in some one of our other Latin American 
countries.” At Teachers College, Columbia University, Mr. Eby is working on 
a doctor’s degree project which includes: (1) a study of the history of teacher 
exchanges, (2) a statement of the legal requirements of various states and of 
plans to increase the number of exchanges, (3) services as intermediary be- 
tween school systems to facilitate exchange agreements, (4) an observation 
of the results through follow-up. 

Mr. Eby gives the objective values of teacher exchanges as follows: 
(1) development of new ideas and interests through new experiences, (2) in- 
creased understanding of other peoples and enjoyment of their culture, 
(3) greater appreciation and more critical understanding of one’s own country 
through comparisons, (4) improved teaching of English in Latin America 
{and of Spanish in the United States], (5) educational progress through com- 
parison of methods. In brief, broader living for teachers to enrich and vitalize 
teaching. 

Two principles are urged if the exchange movement is to continue on a 
sound basis: careful selection of teachers must be stressed; those selected 
should feel a keen responsibility to go as ambassadors of good will. 

If you are interested in considering an exchange for next year, direct your 
inquiry to Frederick Eby, Jr., 423 West 120th Street, New York City. 


Wuite House CONFERENCE ON OHILDREN.—Economic security for the 
normal family was held by the 1940 Conference to be the Nation’s deepest con- 
cern. Two approaches to the problem are: (1) “through measures designed to 
raise the income of wage earner and farm families which constitute nearly 
sixty-three per cent of all families in the United States” and (2) “to increase 
those public or private community services for children which are supple- 
mentary to family resources.” 

The report of the conference notes a variety of efforts which have been 
used to raise family income in America, such as trade unions, wage and hour 
legislation, unemployment insurance, regulation of industrial home work, and 
soil conservation and farm credit measures of the agricultural program. 

Community services which tend to equalize opportunities for children have 
become increasingly important, the report says, enumerating maternal and 
child-health provisions of the Social Security Act, hot lunches at school, sur- 

lus caneelliy distribution, better housing projects, and increased school, 
health, and recreation agencies. 

“The distribution of children among the various types of communities in 
the United States is almost diametrically opposed to the resources of these 
communities,” says the report. The problem which will occupy the decade until 
the next White House Conference meets and longer will be that of finding ways 
of getting more money into the hands of consumers, so that they may purchase, 
in this way stimulating production; this means more employment and more 


money to wage earners and farmers. 

























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1940] News Items 111 


Warning was given against considering foreign wars in the light of expan- 
sion of the national income: “It is important to keep in mind that any degree 
of recovery which is based on the unsound foundation of foreign wars and price 
speculation will bring deeper depression afterward.” 


“RHODE IstAnp Speaks.”—This is the title of Monograph No. 1, of the 
Rhode Island Speech Association. Writing in the Foreword, James F. Rockett, 
director of education in Rhode Island, describes the plan and objectives of the 
organization. “Not only will this Rhode Island Speech Plan be effective in 
helping those unfortunates with speech defects, but its greatest good will lie 
in the future speech education of children. .. . The Rhode Island State Depart- 
ment of Education is now organizing a statewide plan for the correction of 
speech disorders and the prevention of the development of speech defects in 
the home and classroom.” Dr. Frederick V. Martin, director of Speech Clinics, 
Rhode Island College of Education, also emphasizes prevention as well as 
cure of speech disorders. “It is possible,” states Dr. Martin, “to correct every 
speech defect, especially stammering and stuttering. At Martin Hall, Bristol, 
we have cases coming from all parts of the world. They are men and women 
who have found it impossible to get along in the social and business world. 
Few of these cases would have found it necessary to come to us if they had 
been handled correctly by parents and teachers when they first had difficulty 
in speech. ... With proper medical care and correct education in the develop- 
ment of the child’s speech, few cases of speech defects should ever become 
chronic.” 

An extreme case is cited by Dr. Martin as follows: “During the World 
War a soldier had half his jaw shot away by shrapnel. He lost the front third 
of his tongue. By clever plastic surgery his jaw was restored. Our speech unit 
spent a year re-educating the remaining muscles of his tongue to articulate 
words. To-day he speaks normally—better than the average man in the street. 
This case is cited to show that it can be done with thousands of others, that 
if the parent and teacher will study the production of a child’s speech and 
patiently and persistently lead him quietly into a new manner of articulating, 

normal speech may be developed and the child will be saved as a factor in the 
social world.” 


IN-SCHOOL AND OUT-OF-SCHOOL EDUCATION.—‘In the race between in-school 
and out-of-school education the odds are heavily against the classroom,” 
writes I. Keith Tyler in a recent issue of The News Letter, Columbus, Ohio. 
Although admitting that from the point of view of time spent in school com- 
pared with time spent elsewhere, the cards are stacked against the teacher, 
Mr. Tyler believes that the significance of an experience, educationally speaking, 
is not measured by the time it consumes. And he continues, “What we need 
to do is to make sure that the activities in which our pupils engage are those 
that count.” He suggests four guideposts (condensed below) for making learn- 
ing significant and applies them to radio, movies, and the press: 


1. Attention must center upon the child, his needs, problems, anxieties, 
affections, and his various responses to his environment. .. . / Although life can- 
not be divided up, there are discernible two broad areas of experience with 
which the school must deal: those resulting from growth and development 
and those stemming more directly from the pressures of environment. 


2. Vital experiences must be grasped by teachers at the point where the 
are seen and felt by pupils. To become familiar with the motion-picture pref- 
ertnces of pupils, a teacher should attend a Saturday matinee in neighborhood 
theaters and sit through a double or triple feature (at least once). Similarly 
a thorough sampling should be made of the whole gamut of radio listening. 


3. Teachers must be realistic and seek facts behind events and continu- 
ously strive for better understanding of what is going on. For example, if we 
would deal with problems of poverty and slums in literature, materials must 
be used which reveal them as sordid blots on American life. Likewise, a real- 
istic understanding of movies, radio, and the press can only be obtained as 
boys and girls recognize the part that commercial motives play in shaping 
what they see and hear. 


















112 National Association of Secondary-School Principals [May 











4. The classroom must become a place where pupils turn for interpreta- 
tion of what is happening to them. The pupil must be given a chance to ex- 
amine the whole range of his experiences and fit them together into a mean- 
ingful whole; otherwise, he may go along storing his experiences in separate, 
unorganized compartments. 















A LETTER FROM SWEDEN.—The Secretary of the Central Board of the 
Exchange of Pupils, Stockholm, wrote the following letter to the executive 
secretary of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals in re- 
sponse to an inquiry concerning pupil exchanges: 














STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 
March 20, 1940 







Dear SIR: 

I have got your letter of January 29, enclosing the clipping from a Chi 
cago newspaper, and, in a separate cover, a copy of STupENT LIFE. In your 
letter you ask for some information about our organization for school youth 
exchange. 

For many years there has been an exchange of pupils between Sweden 
and Germany in the following way: during the holidays boys and girls from 
Sweden have visited Germany, and, when they went back, a batch of boys and 
girls from Germany have accompanied them to spend part of their holidays 
with their former guests. 

From 1938 this exchange has been organized by official authorities, The 
Central Board of the Exchange of Pupils (Central-niimnden fér skolungdom- 
sutbyte), appointed by the Ministry of Education. 

During the last years this exchange has taken place not only between 
Sweden and Germany, but between Sweden and England, France, Germany, 
Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. For this exchange we 
have cojperated with organizations in the different countries. 

The Central Board have also arranged holiday courses in foreign boarding 
schools, an Anglo-Swedish holiday camp, board and lodging for Swedish boys 
and girls in foreign countries, and for foreign young people in Sweden, and 
so on. 
During 1938 and 1939 the number of Swedish partakers in the exchange 
has amounted to about twelve hundred each year. 

In 1939 we tried also to arrange an exchange with the United States in 
coéperation with the Cleveland Student Exchange and the International 
Schoolboy Fellowship. The result was very small that year: only one American 
boy came here, and he now spends the whole school year 1939-1940 in Sweden. 
We hope that, when the war is over, we shall be able to go on with this ex- 
change on a larger scale. 

The purpose of the exchange of pupils is that young people of diflierent 
countries shall get into contact with young people of other countries, increase 
their knowledge of foreign languages and the geography, history, national 
character, and traditions of the country they visit. We think also that this 
exchange may forward the ideas of international understanding and of the 
international brotherhood of nations. 

If you publish an article about the Swedish Exchange of Pupils in 
Srupent Lire, I should be very much obliged to you for sending me a copy 
of the magazine. 

In a separate cover [ am sending you a couple of booklets about Sweden 
and the Anglo-Swedish Exchange 1939. 

Yours very truly, 

Evert CARLHOLM 

Secretary of the Central 

Board of the Exchange of Pupils 















































Summer Convention Program 


National Association of Secondary-School Principals 
of the N. E. A. 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 


July 1-2, 1940 


GENERAL THEME: That All May Learn 


MONDAY Topic: Guidance in Secondary Educa- 
July 1 tion 

2:15 P. M. Presiding: Herbert Helble, Principal, 
ons : Walker Hall ; Appleton High School, State Coérdi- 
your Milwaukee Auditorium nator, National Association of Second- 
so ary-School Principals. 
— Address: “Present-Day Challenges to 
ond Guidance in Secondary Education,” 
days Francis C. Rosecrance, Professor of 
The Education, Northwestern University. 
oiaal Address: “The Social and Emotional 
— Development of the Secondary-School 
oe Student,” R. W. Tyler, Chairman of 
| : the Department of Education, Univer- 
‘ding sity of Chicago. 


boys 


and TUESDAY Joint session of Secondary-School Princi- 
ven July 2 pals and National Association of Teach- 
Big rn iy ers of Speech 

ronal poor Scho! Topic: Meeting the Youth Problem 

ae. Auditorium Presiding: Oscar Granger, President, Na- 


5 i tional Association of Secondary-School 
ne Principals. 
rease 


ea Address: In a Recreation Area, “Leisure 


this Time Activities,” Dorothy C. Enderis, 
cue Assistant Supt. in Charge of Depart- 
Is in ment of Municipal Recreation and 


copy Adult Education 


veden Address: In a Subject Area, “What the 
Secondary-School Administrator May 
Expect of the Speech Teacher,” Rex- 
ford Mitchell, President, LaCrosse State 
Teachers College 


113 



































Address and Demonstration: “Speech 
Throughout the High School,” Jean- 
ette Ross, Shorewood High School 
Demonstratjon with high-school stu- 





dents. 
Dinner Shorewood Auditorium Dining Room 
5:00 P. M. Presiding: Oscar Granger, President, Na- 
tional Association of Secondary-School 
Principals. 


Address: “Continuing Education,” Ed- 
ward Landy, Director of the Occupa- 
tional Adjustment Study of the Na- 
tional Association of Secondary-School 
Principals. 







Price per plate: one dollar. 














ANNOUNCEMENT 









The 1941 Winter Meeting 









of the 


National Association of 


Secondary-School Principals 









will be held in 






Atlantic City, New Jersey 
(Hotel Headquarters not yet assigned) 






February 22-27 




















Standardized Personnel Blanks 


AT THE CLEVELAND meeting in 1939, a special committee was ap- 
pointed to revise and enlarge the scope of the uniform transcript blank 
known as the Certificate of Secondary-School Credits now in use by mem- 
bers of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals. The need 
for revising this blank has become increasingly apparent for some time. 
Constructive developments in admission procedures and widespread 
selective admission restrictions have been factors in calling attention to 
the problem. This committee headed by Principal Raymond D. Meade, 
Bloom Township High School, Chicago Heights, Illinois, reported at the 
St. Louis meeting that coéperative relationships had been established with 
the American Association of Collegiate Registrars, and that steps were 


being taken to organize a joint committee to develop a combination tran- 
script and personnel blank. 


Reports from various sections of the country indicate that the develop- 
ment of such forms is under consideration by numerous state and regional 
organizations as wall as by groups of higher institutions. As a step toward 
coordination, the Association’s committee invites all such groups that 
have developed forms either on a tentative or final basis, to send at least 
five copies to the chairman at the foregoing address. The committee re- 
quests further that it be furnished the names of committee chairmen in 
the various states now at work on this problem. It is hoped that an ex- 
change of information and ideas will be extremely helpful to all concerned. 


Raymonp D. Meape, Chairman 
Committee on Pupil Records 











Calendar 


American Federation of Teachers, Buflalo, New York, August 19-23, 






American Home Economics Association, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23-27. 





Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York, June 29-August 24. 


Conference of Administrative Officers of Public and Private Schools, 
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, July 15-19. 






Conference on Business Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, 
Illinois, June 27-28. 


Eleventh Annual School Administrators’ Conference, George Peabody 
College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, June 18-20. 













Fifteenth Annual League College sponsored by the National League of 
Teachers Associations, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, July 
8-19. 


National Association of Secondary-School Principals, Milwaukee, Wiscon- 






sin, July 1-2. 






National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 
July 1-3. 


National Education Association, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 30-July 4. 






Silver Anniversary of The Association for the Study of Negro Life and 
History, Chicago, September 9, 1940. 






Workshop Conference, Department of Supervisors and Directors of In- 
struction, NEA, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, July 8-19.