To parent-teacher meetings goes many a bewildered oldster. Now hold on, Miss Fox. It's all very well to teach my boy to paint pretty pictures in Bill Birdhouse, but he doesn't even know his multiplication table. For generations, U.S. youngsters went to school because they had to. And most communities boasted but one room and a single teacher with which to educate their entire and assorted progeny.
Good morning, children. Good morning, children. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He made me to lie down and greet the pastor. Johnny learned his multiplication tables as his father and grandfather had before him, through endless classroom drills.
Two, nine, six, seven, eight, nine, eight. Three, nine, six, ten, eighteen. By the same process, he learned the key dates of history, and impossible to spell words.
And geography. Oregon. San Diego. Nevada. Nevada City.
The drill formula was simple, if monotonous. And Johnny Sparks were more apt to measure the strength of his memory than his understanding. Happiest moment for the school...
schoolchildren of that sterner era was when school let out. But for some youngsters, staying after school seemed almost unavoidable. At Columbia University is one of the men responsible for the spread of today's revolutionary teaching ideas, Professor William Hurt Kilpatrick.
We are trying to help the child learn to face actuality. and on this basis build his ideas, his character, his sense of self-reliance, of how to live and work with others. In a word, we are equipping the child to face his future by learning to face intelligently his immediate present. Yesterday found only a half dozen advanced experimental schools.
Today in tens of thousands of public schools from Santa Monica, California to Bronxville, New York, progressive education has informed... force. Learning by doing, learning about practical everyday problems, perhaps a traffic problem, and practical teaching.
A child can dictate what he sees before he can read about it in a book. There are ways of making spelling and reading fun. One lovely Saturday morning, Andy Shacks, Andy Kapushka, took some butter and some sugar, and some flour and some milk and some eggs. And she rolled out some nice little cakes.
Then she sprinkled each cake with some of the poppy seeds that she had brought from the old country. When the nice little cakes were baking, she spread out the flour and... important device of progressive education is the project.
For first graders, one day it may be a lunch project. First step for these tiniest Moffats involves reading. As individuals are assigned to get at the various items of food.
Buying at the store involves arithmetic and a practical knowledge of money. Then comes the serious business for Muppets of cooperating with each other in preparing lunch. This youngster is learning that butter is made from cream. He knew that cream came from a cow. From this one day's project, in actually handling food may spring another day's discussion or a further project, perhaps about the farm.
For these tots, even waiting to begin to eat is a lesson in self-restraint. For eight and nine year olds, managing the school store is an advanced exercise in practical business. For twelve to fourteen year old projects, Buses run daily to inspect the everyday world outside.
Studying airplanes and their operations will soon involve every phase of schooling, from manual training to commercial geography. And the youngster's creative imagination is not neglected. Once there was a bear that was twice the size of the earth and lived on the sun.
Only one side of the sun was hot. The other side of the sun was dark and cold. The bear lived on the...
So, retaining the best of the old system, the progressive education schools from kindergarten to high school hold that seeing is believing. That knowledge gained during an actual experience is best understood and longest retained. Chief critic today of the school's new teaching philosophy is Columbia University's Dr. William C. Bagley.
Similar theories caused a softening of the fiber of Greek education 2,500 years ago and doubtless played a part in the decadence of Greek civilization. Progressive education has its virtues, but it also has its dangers. But reassuring is the man more responsible than anyone else for the school's new teaching tactic. America's number one educator and philosopher, John Dewey.
The world is moving at a tremendous rate. No one knows where. We must prepare our children, not for the world of the past, not for our world, but for their world, the world of the future. Today, an overwhelming majority of U.S. educators are convinced, through happy, impressive results, that these new teaching methods are best equipping today's youngster for today's world.
I'm Martyrs'Ones.