Progressive School Administration in Philadelphia
NEWS AND COMMENT.
Readers of The Psychological Clinic will be interested in the substance of Dr Brumbaugh’s report, issued February 13th, as he has some new and valuable suggestions to make.
After urging higher salaries for teachers, he makes the unique suggestion for a Sabbatical year for the teachers of Philadelphia, one year in seven to be given each teacher for travel and study, on part pay, for the improvement of the school staff and standards.
When urging a larger amount of industrial training for our schools, which in his mind is directly parallel with the plan of the Public Education Association for Vocational Guidance, the Superintendent makes the following pleas which we might well make our slogan for the year: “We are coming to the point in our civilization where we regard the public school not only as a training place for citizenship in the republic, but as a place for1 the equipment of the individual for the largest possible earning capacity in the community,” and further, “We are now expending such a large amount of money upon education that it would be economy to spend more in order that we might secure such an increased equipment on the material side and such an increased efficiency on the spiritual side as to make it possible to realize more nearly the type of efficiency which the State and the community alike demand at the hands of the school.”
Not only does Dr Brumbaugh enter a strong plea for the development of social centers, officially under the Board of Education, and the further enlargement of the facilities of the evening schools, which are in his mind the continuation schools of Philadelphia, but he makes a definite request as follows: “The social centers, the evening schools, and public lectures, are closely related in general aims and purposes, and should be made to function so that all may be helped by each and each by all. This development of the system can be best accomplished by placing all these activities in charge of a competent assistant under the general direction of the Department of Superintendence.”
The report shows 30 disciplinary classes for 1911, with an enrolment of 600, and 45 backward classes, with an enrolment of 799. “While these figures show a comparatively rapid growth of special classes (an increase of about 30 per cent for the year), the number provided is still inadequate.” In this regard Dr Brumbaugh makes three definite requests: (a) “A residential school of the industrial type, intermediate between the special class and the institutions to which juvenile offenders are committed by the courts, is sadly needed.” (b) There should be appointed “an expert in charge pf all special classes, whose whole time could be devoted to planning and co-ordinating the work of these classes and to assisting and directing the teachers. The work is so important and is becoming so large that sympathetic and helpful supervision is an economic necessity.” (c) A plea which must touch the sympathy of all, which follows the statement that 1540 children of school age are known to be out of school because of blindness, deafness, or some crippled or impaired physical condition. The need for types of special classes that may meet these cases is definitely stated. James S. Hiatt,
Secretary Public Education Association.
Special Classes at the TJmiversity of Pennsylvania in 1912. The Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania is now perfecting the organization of two special classes to be conducted during the summer of 1912. One class will be composed of fifteen backward children, the other of about the same number of exceptionally bright children, and they will be taught by three of the best teachers of such classes in the country. Students in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania Summer School of 1912 will have the opportunity to register for observation of the special classes. They will be admitted to the clas3 rooms at a certain hour every day, and will be taught how to observe. In the afternoon a round table discussion will be held under the direct guidance of Professor Lightner Witmer, assisted by the teachers of the special classes.
Those who attended the observation course last summer under Miss Elizabeth Farrell will remember how profitable the round table discussions were. They will be glad to hear that a book has just been published called, “The Special Class for Backward Children, an educational experiment conducted for the instruction of teachers and other students of child welfare by the Psychological Laboratory and Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania,” reported by Lightner Witmer, Ph.D. The volume contains, among other things, a complete account of the organization and equipment of this model special class, a clinical study of the children attending it, their bodily and mental condition, home life, nutrition, and the changes made in them by six weeks of good care and teaching. Miss Parrell contributes two chapters, one of which is a verbatim report of her remarks at the round table, and Professor Witmer in the concluding chapter interprets the significance of psychological training for the teacher. The book is most fully illustrated, and gives an adequate idea of the work accomplished in 1911, which it is confidently hoped will be advanced and improved upon in 1912.
A prospectus announcing the courses in psychology for 1912, and containing illustrations of the Psychological Laboratory and Clinic, many of which have never before been published, is being printed and may be had upon application to Professor E. B. Twitmyer, Laboratory of Psychology, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania, West Philadelphia, Pa.
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