An Experiment in Concentration
- Author:
Herbert F. Clark,
Principal Olive Special School, Los Angeles, Gal.
It has often been charged against the public school system that the average pupil could do the same amount of work in much less time if only the opportunity and the proper incentive were given him. I decided recently to test out this criticism, and will now state the conditions and the results and offer an interpretation of some of the educational principles involved. The group of children consisted of fourteen boys, approximating 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. They comprise one room of the Los Angeles Special Schools, the group being made up of truants, incorrigibles and other misfits from the ordinary grades. On last Friday morning I put on the board a careful assignment of the work in each subject for the day. I designated what seat work should be done and what the recitation would consist of. When the boys came in I told them that when they had finished all the work required, in a manner satisfactory to me, they could be excused for the day. I gave each boy a slip of paper on which he wrote his name and all the subjects required. When a boy finished a subject he brought in the list and I checked it off. The list of subjects was writing, arithmetic, reading, history, language, geography and spelling. The eighth grade had geometry and agriculture instead of arithmetic and geography. I warned them that no careless work would be accepted.
With these preliminary suggestions the boys went to work. They gathered in groups, freely discussing any phase of their work. They argued out their difficult points in arithmetic for instance; some going to the blackboard while others used paper. It was of course necessary for me to have some plan of hearing the recitations. I took the first group who were ready for arithmetic, and after that I had to take those boys first whenever a group were all ready to recite.
When recess time came along only a few boys cared to go out and play. The rest stayed in and worked.
The result was that the three boys in the seventh grade had their work all done and were gone at eleven o’clock. The eighth grade boys were through at eleven-thirty and all were gone by eleven-forty-five.
Such an experiment brings up a large number of educational (178) REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. 179 questions. Is it well for children to do intensive concentration for a short period of time and then get out in the open air for a longer period of play? My answer to that would be, yes, provided the mental concentration was voluntary on the part of the child, under wholesome physical conditions, and with a proper incentive.
Next,?Did these boys do a reasonable amount of school work for one day ? My answer to that again is, yes. How far can that principle of action be carried into the ordinary school ? My answer is, I do not know. Was the quality of work done a credit to boys of their ages ? Yes, most of it. Some of the drawings on the board were excellent. Some of the language papers were miserably poor, but isn’t it advisable to accept poor work provided you feel that the child has done reasonably well, considering his abilities? Such a plan has a tendency to break up many of the old notions as to the necessity of regular hours, regular recitations and mark-time system. But if by so doing we get nearer to the hearts of the boys, if we get enough of real effort from them to insure reasonable growth let us by all means let some of the good old-fashioned stereotyped methods go.
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