The New Education (Stillwater, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 10, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 1, 1910 Page: 1 of 4
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Public Education Number
The New Education
STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA, MAY 1, 1910 • h No. 10
crease their
the
to
H. BOWERS.
be
or
his
al-
for
re-
A. & M. C. Faculty and Students on Morrill Hall Steps.
teachers and smaller classes.
JOHN
Children improve in proportion as they get
the teacher’s personal attention and have oppor-
tunity for self-expression. In the large class the
child has little or no opportunity for self-expres-
sion; and the individual can not show what he
knows or what he desires to know. In a largd
class the apt pupils are held back, the slow pu-
pils are not able to keep up and all the pupils
lack opportunity (or individual work. How oft?n
the parent complains, saying: “The teacher does
not help my child" when in fact the class is> so
large that the teacher can not help any one child
without neglecting all the others. Again, the
parent is often heard to say: “Instead of being
patient with my boy and talking to him, the
teacher just whipped him’’, when in fact the
teacher did not have time to talk and be patient,
because fifty other children demanded her im-
mediate attention. '
The good moral influence which the teacher
could exercise on a small class is lost when the
teacher is crowded with forty or fifty children.
If classes were only half as large as they now are
pupils would all double the progress they now
make in their studies and the moral influence of
the teacher would be greatly increased. This
proposition has already been proved in many
schools where the size of the classes has been
reduced. In the. best model schools no teacher
is allowed to teach over twelve or fifteen pupils,
and the common schools should do something to
approach the model school ideal. Our public
schools should be more practical in their
aims and meth-
yl ods. We should
1 have the best
possible indus-
trial training for
all children, and
especially for
those children
who are not nat-
urally adapted
for the work of
' the school as it
now is.
Many young
people quit the
school too early
because they do
not like books,
but do like man-
ual work. The
good of these
young people
and the welfare
of the State
would be great-
ly advanced by
giving them
' quite early in
1 life the advan-
tages of indus-
trial training.
T o improve
our common
schools we need
better buildings,
larger salaries,
better parental
co-operation, but
most of all we
need more
NEEDED REFORMS IN OUR
COMMON SCHOOLS
If you ask concerning the most needed reform
in our common schools, many will answer, bettei
teachers”. But this answer does not help us, be-
cause as a rule, there are no better teachers than
those now engaged in the work. Others with more
discernment answer, “better salaries for teachers
will improve our schools”. This is true. How-
ever, this movement for better salaries is opposed
on two pretexts: first, that some teachers now
receive all they merit; and second, that better
salaries paid to the same teachers would not in-
crease their efficiency. These contentions are
partly right. Nevertheless, better salaries would
improve the schools, because it would attract
more of the best talent to enter the work of
teaching, would hold experienced teachers longer
in the work, would stimulate prospective teachers
to make better preparation and would enable
teachers to improve their educational advantages.
In many places the schools need better moral
support from the parents. Too often parents have
been accustomed to shift all responsibility upon
the teacher. They say, “as teacher so school”;
but it would be fairer and more truthful to say,
“as parent so school”; because, the parent first
determines the environment of the school, the
compensation of the teacher, and the attitude of
the child toward the school. Some parents pre-
vent the school from doing its best for their chil-
dren by first disposing their children to be preju-
diced against
the teacher. A
few misguided
parents preju-
dice their chil-
dren against
even the best
of teachers, and
m any parents
prejudice their
children against
one whom they
believe to be a
poor teacher. Tn
either case the
parent does his
child a great in-
jury. Whether
the teacher
excellent
poor in
work, it is
ways best
the child to
spect the teach-
er and get what
good he can
from the school.
If a community
offers a poor
price and in
consequence
gets a p o or
teacher, it is
n evertheless
wise to co-op-
erate with that
teacher and help
him to do his
best.
Another need- .....
ed reform is better school buildings and equip-
ment The school house should be, if possible,
more attractive than the home. The school
should be a place so beautiful and so comfort-
able that children would like to go there. Chil-
dren who must go from a beautiful home to an
ugly school do not get the right view of an edu-
cation. An unattractive school defeats our pur-
pose. We want children to appreciate an educa-
tion but they associate an education with the
unpleasant environment in which it is offered.
Parents could well afford to make their homes a
little plainer in order to make the school room
more inviting. The contrast between a pleasant
room at home and a plain room at school causes
the child to regard the process of an education
as something to be tolerated rather than appre-
ciated. It will be objected that the school is a
workshop, that children subject good furnish-
ings to hard wear, and that we are not able to
furnish the school room as we do the home.
These objections are invalid. The home is also
a kind of workshop, the children subject its fur-
nishings to hard wear, and we can furnish the
school as neatly as we do the home
The consolidation of small rural schools is a
good policy in proportion as the larger organiza-
tion offers better advantages tnan the smaller
units of which it is composed. Consolidation
should be for improvement of educational ad-
vantages, not for mere economy of expenditure.
The small rural school may be improved without
consolidation, or it may be consolidated without
improvement. While the consolidated school
SUMMER NORMAL CERTIFICATES AND
CREDITS AT A. & M. C.
Upon examination at the close of the Summer
Normal, teachers may receive a county certificate
of the third, second or first class as their grading,
experience, and other qualifications may warrant,
according to the requirements of the law; or they
may be granted the elementary state certificate
corresponding in rank with the county certificate.
Teachers who attend the Normal for the pur-
pose of improving themselves in a professional
way or of becoming more efficient in certain
branches of study may retain grades of 85 and
above, on certificates in force or that have expired
since the last regular examination, and have same
transferred to a new certificate of the same or a
higher grade. . , ,
Teachers taking Reading Circle work may have
all grades above 85 per cent made in the Normal
carried over and recorded for credits toward a
state certificate for a period of three years, pro-
vided the usual fee is sent with the application to
the County Superintendent for recording such
k Students presenting evidence of grades of 85 or
above in required subjects, earned in the regular
course at this College or in institutions of similar
standing, will receive credit for same on certifi-
cates.
offers some advantages that can not be offered in
smaller schools, it should guard against too many
pupils per teacher. .
The greatest defect in our public schools today
is that we have too many pupils per teacher. Lhe
greatest improvement that we can make is to em-
ploy more teachers, reduce the size of classes
and thus increase the personal attention to cac 1
pupil. This raises the question, how many pupils
can one teach in the common school?
At present the average number of pupils pet-
teacher in our lower grades is fifty, lhe length
of the school day, after deducting recesses and
general exercise is about three hundred minutes
or six minutes per pupil. AU will concede at
once that each pupil should have more Bian
minutes per day of the teacher’s time. Likewise
all will probably concede that each pupil ought
to have for each day at least fifteen or thirty
minutes of the teacher’s time. If each pupil is
to have fifteen minutes the number of pupils pel
teacher will be twenty. If each pupil is to have
thirtv minutes the number of pupils per teacher
will be ten. On this basis no teacher should
have more than ten or twenty pupils.
While a strong-willed teacher can govern a
large number of pupils, say fifty or one hundred,
can require them to be orderly and appear to be
busy, she can only teach them in proportion to
the number. When a child is one of fifty in a
class he gets the benefit of one-fiftieth part ot
the teacher’s attention, and when he is one ot
ten in a class he gets one-tenth of the teacher s
attention.
HORACE MANN
(May 4, 1796—August 2, 1859.)
1819, graduated Brown University; 1823, admitted
bar; 1827, member Massachusetts General Assembly; 1833,
Massachusetts State Senate; 1836, president of same; 1837-
1848, secretary State Board of Education; 1848-1852, succes-
sor of John Quincy Adams in Congress; 1852-1859, president
of Antioch College, Ohio.
A wise statesman and eloquent tribune of the
common schools, he believed with all his heart
in modern democracy, and against the blindest,
fiercest opposition he, more than any other man,
inaugurated the reforms that have made Amer-
ica’s public school system great today. “Rare.1/
have great abilities, unselfish devotion, and bril-
liant success been so united in the course of a
single life.”
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Connell, J. H. The New Education (Stillwater, Okla.), Vol. 1, No. 10, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 1, 1910, periodical, May 1, 1910; Stillwater, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1597263/m1/1/: accessed April 24, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.