Curriculum Making
The Psychological Clinic Copyright, 1913, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. Vol. VII, No. 3. May 15, 1913. :Author: William E. Grady, Principal Public School 64. Manhattan, New York City.
The recent volcanic outburst of criticism from expert investigators and intelligent laymen against the New York elementary school course of stucty must be rather startling to those pedagogues within the system who are fond of assuming that because there is a tacit or open acceptance of a well buttressed traditional point of view or of certain orthodox pedagogical principles on the part of the supervising officials, routine administration and teaching will necessarily conform to those principles. The source of much evil is in the assumption that the common acceptance of valid general principles necessarily insures sound practice. It should be patent that because of the tendency to read different contents into general statements, supervisors who cannot be accused of insincerity condone educational practices so widely variant that at first glance it would be absurd to believe they were acting upon the same controlling ideas.
In a recent discussion the following positive statement was offered as a criterion for the selection of curriculum material,?”Those accumulated habits, experiences, ideals, and standards of the race which are reasonably comprehensible to elementary school children and which are most essential in promoting effective social functioning under current social conditions, should be provided for in the course of study in such a way as to secure the maximum of individual development, physically, intellectually, aesthetically, and ethically.” The phrase, “effective social functioning under current social conditions” ought to satisfy any philosophical critic who is fond of deductive procedure and who loves a well balanced, euphonious statement. But despite the influence of such ideas, our practice is defective largely because we do not follow an inductive procedure which would supply us with scientific data showing just what local conditions are. Many of our problems should be discussed not in terms of the pupil in school, but in terms of the pupil not in school.
TAULK I. OCCUPATIONS HAVING MORE THAN 10,000 WORKERS. Totals. Years employed. Occupation. Housework Errand Boys and Girls. Clerks 14 10 10 18 Boys. 1 6,300 2,122 Girls. 8,093 001 795 Boys. 1 0,103 7,023 Grand Totals. Girls. Boys. 9,583 501 2,191 2 12,529 9,145 Girls. 18,270 1,222 2,980 Total. 18,278 13,751 12,131 OCCUPATIONS HAVING MORE THAN 5000 WORKERS. Office Boys and Girls. Helpers 3,551 1,807 007 577 4,442 1,109 3,144 793 7,993 4,951 1,770 1,370 OCCUPATIONS HAVING MORE THAN 1000 WORKERS. Machine Operators Packers and Wrappers Idle Stenographers and Typists. Salesmen and Saleswomen. Not Known Messengers Stock Boys and Girls Bookkeepers Dressmakers Seamstresses Feather Workers Shirt and Waist Makers… Millinery Wagon Boys Telephone Operators Outer Clothing Workers… Paper Box Makers Drivers Printers Tailors 307 331 1,793 115 201 877 1,117 304 107 13 33 0 433 59 57 73 251 278 159 1,230 1,453 34 503 005 471 150 388 222 C05 587 551 421 430 223 228 354 9 859 ! 2,380 727 2,100 2,053 73 471 2,081 1,088 1,823 1,440 898 1,358 79 1,003 863 717 i 1,142 2 1,384 1,105 1,050 919 984 32 90 11 920 101 i 844 204 | 645 192 495 853 i ? 751 36 613 178 1,226 1,058 3,840 586 1,289 2,317 2,475 1,367 824 45 123 17 1,353 220 201 265 1,104 1,029 772 3,616 3,559 107 3,244 2,428 1,309 235 1,251 1,364 1,989 1,092 1,001 1,340 1,420 1,067 873 849 45 266 9,709 0,321 4,842 4,617 3,953 3,830 3,717 3,086 2,710 2,018 2,188 1,991 1,692 1,640 1,403 1,437 1,353 1,287 1,134 1,114 1,104 1,074 1,038
OCCUPATIONS HAVING MORE THAN 500 WORKERS. ‘ I I Embroidery | 29 310 62 Cash Boys and Girls ! 93 407 03 Cashiers j ]8 169 78 Bookbinders j 72 202 130 Servants ] 14 273 32 Machinists | 139 1 445 NeckWear j n 114 50 Vendors | 202 15 284 Artificial Flowers j 21 161 ! 225 483 231 529 325 362 349 13 298 91 150 90 202 46 584 61 486 793 638 698 527 635 1 463 28 46 459 884 794 794 729 681 585 524 514 505
Tlu; pupil who pusses into and remains in our secondary school frequently because of sheer inertia, is an educational aristocrat whose salvation is really of less concern than that of the pupil whose “university training” begins and ends in the elementary school. This truth becomes significant when we recall that although this city spends approximately $36,000,000 a year on its school system, only recently have the educational authorities obtained definite data showing the occupation of New York City children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
On page 58 is a partial tabulation of the data collected by Mr. George H. Chatfield, Secretary of the Permanent Census Bureau of the City of New York, in an investigation covering 140,000 workers out of a possible maximum of 250,000. Mr. Chatfield adds, “There is rarely a community of large size in the land, that has evidence as to the success or failure of those who leave school, or indeed has definite knowledge of the conditions in actual life which these children must meet,?in consequence the criticisms have been difficult to meet except by unconvincing generalizations. The knowledge of the critics is no more accurate, and no thoroughgoing reform will result from reliance on mere opinion.”1 Surely these facts together with the amazing conditions revealed by recent industrial investigations in this city and in Chicago should give new significance to the term, “current social conditions”.
If we interpret this statement from a still broader standpoint and assume, as statistics show, that farming and housekeeping are the two types of occupation in which the bulk of our people are engaged, have our schools throughout the country accepted the implication that thinking and doing, book study and practical application, theory and practice go hand in hand in the world at large and therefore should always go together in the various phases of school work ? Our curricula and teaching processes are in the thrall of an intellectualistic psychology which does little for that type of pupil,?and our whole industrial life would seem to indicate that they are in the majority,?whose interest is to do, to make, to think not in a Platonic fashion but in relation to the pressing concrete problems of practical life. We are apt to forget that the pupil who in terms of intensive book study may display initiative, sound judgment, and coherent organization of thought, frequently fails to show any of these characteristics in the ordinary but urgent situations of the playground, the street, the home, or the occupation. The present extension of vocational training marks only the initial stage of pub1 Quarterly Publications of American Statistical Association, Sept., 1912. lie appreciation of the point of view long since expounded by Pro fessor John Dewey:
“The education of the human race upon the whole has been gained through the occupations which it has pursued and developed. The vocations, the professions, the lines of activity which have been socially evolved have furnished the social stimuli to knowledge and the centres about which it has been organized. If occupations were made fundamental in education, school work could conform to the natural principle of social and mental development. It is a serious error to think of occupational activities as if they were merely of prosaic utilitarian or even commercial worth. Their primary value is educational. It consists in training the thinking of boys and girls in connection with things that appeal to them as worth doing. … It includes a broad and liberal scheme of knowledge, for all typical social occupations rest upon scientific insight and information… . An adequate mastery of the typical occupations brings the pupil to a study of the social conditions and aims of the present; to facts which when classified form sociology, economics, civics, and politics. The fine arts are naturally included?in short there is nothing of science, history, or art which the educational experience has shown to be of worth, which an occupational education would not include.”
There is little scientific basis not only for the content of curricula as at present organized, but also for the amount which the average pupil is supposed to master before he can graduate or be eligible for advancement to a higher type of school. Is it not a fact that venerable tradition or the personal opinion of superintendents as to what a child should know is usually taken as a standard, in place of the inflexible limits imposed by the native ability of the pupil and his social environment? New York City for example has a maximum uniform course of study covering eight school years, which in its fundamental features has varied little in response to the stupendous changes of recent years due to the influx of European immigrants. I he following table has been adapted from Payne, “Public Elementary School Curricula”. It shows the curriculum of the Public Elementary Schools of New York City for the years 1808, 1888, 1904, and 1912, and also the percentage of total time devoted to each subject in the respective years.
I)<w , John. Bearings of Pragmatism on Education. Proyrcssive Journal of Education. CURRICULUM MAKING. 01 TABLE II. CURRICULUM OF PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK CITY, 1SG8, 1SSS, 1904, 1012. Subjects. 1. Opening Exercises 2. Physical Training, Physiology. 3. Arithmetic 4. Geography 5. History and Civics 0. Writing, Penmanship 7. Language, English 8. Punctuation 9. Grammar 10. Composition 11. Spelling 12. Reading 13. Elementary Science 14. Nature Study 15. Drawing, Construction 10. Manual Training, Cooking, Sewing, Raffia 17. Music IS. Elective 19. Unassigned time Year 1SG8 Grades 2 3 5 | G 7 Total Per cent Year 1SS8 Grades 240 120 30 240 120 3G0 30 25 725 3 ! 4 240 GO 120 3G0 30 180 GO 40 120 300 180 40 40 120 a 40 50 730 G i 7 ! 180 ; ISO 40 | … 40 40 120 ! 120 a 300 40 50 770 180 120 300 1 300 40 40 50 50 770 : 810 Total Per cent 1G20 13.5 3 200 1.6 4 1G0 1.3 9G0 8.0 G 7 8 25S0 21.5 9 10 11 12 13 14 290 2.4 15 16 325 2.7 17 18 5885 49.0 j 19 (Continued on following page)
02 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. TABLE II. (CONTINUED) CURRICULUM OF PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK CITY, 1868, 1888, 1904, 1912.
Subjects. 1. Opening Exercises 2. Physical Training, Physiology. 3. Arithmetic 4. Geography 5. History and Civics C. Writing, Penmanship 7. Language, English 8. Punctuation 9. Grammar 10. Composition 11. Spelling 12. Reading 13. Elementary Science 14. Nature Study 15. Drawing, Construction 16. Manual Training, Cooking, Sewing, Raffia 17. Music IS. Elective 19. Enassigned time Year 1904 75 210 120 100 450 CO b b b b 90 160 60 175 75 165 150 75 ; 75 165 165 150 125 450 60 125 510 60 6 6 b b b : b b : b 90 90 160 160 150 135 75 375 60 b b b b 120 60 i 60 60 75 90 150 120 90 75 375 60 b b b b 120 60 105 , 165 ! 195 210 90 200 120 120 75 375 60 b b b b 120 60 205 Total 75 I 75 90 j 90 160 J 160 SO I .. 120 360 b b b b SO so 80 (200) 275 120 320 b b b b SO SO so 235 600 1065 1240 455 450 575 3215 360 160 345 1000 160 360 200 1565 Per cent 5.0 8.9 10.3 3.8 3.8 4.8 26.8 .0 1.3 2.9 8.3 1.3 3.0 1.7 13.1 Year 1912 75 450 120 100 450 90 120 75 165 150 125 510 90 120 75 165 150 125 450 90 120 60 60 175 205 75 150 150 135 75 375 90 120 210 75 90 150 120 90 75 375 75 120 210 75 75 90 90 200 ; 200 120 120 75 375 120 205 120 120 360 80 80 80 60 (200) 235 Total Per cent 75 90 200 120 320 600 5.0 1290 10.8 1325 11.0 495 4.1 450 3.8 575 4.8 3215 26.8 80 160 1.3 … j 435 | 3.7 80 -880 7.3 80 460 3.8 60 j 480 i 4.0 … 200 1.7 195 1435 12.0 I I
Under 1S6S * indicates subject was taught. Under 1SSS subjects marked a were included under the subject Grammar. Under 1904 subjects marked b were included under the subjects Language-English. Under 1912 subjects marked c are included under the subject English. Table (or 1S6S compiled from Barnard’s American Journal of Education, pages 469-576. Table for 1888 compiled from the United States Commissioner’s Report 1S8S-1889 vol. 1, pages 369-411.
Time not specifically assigned for 1868 and 1904 has been marked “unassigned time”. In calculating percentages the total time devoted to a subject in the eight years’ course was divided by eight times 1500 or 12,000. CURRICULUM MAKING. 03 Tabulating totals for the purpose of comparison we have the following:
1888 1 ? Opening Exercises 2. Physical Training, Physiol. 3. Arithmetic 4. Geography 5. History and Civics 6. Writing, Penmanship 7. Language, English 8. Punctuation 9. Grammar 10. Composition 11. Spelling 12. Reading 13. Elementary Science 14. Nature Study 15. Drawing, Construction … 16. Manual Training, Cooking Sewing, Raffia 17. Music 18. Elective 19. Unassigned time Min. 1620 200 160 960 2580 290 325 5885 Per cent. 13.5 1.6 1.3 8.0 21.5 2.4 2.7 49.0 1904 Min. 1065 1240 455 450 575 3215 360 160 345 1000 160 360 200 1565 Per cent. 5.0 8.9 10.3 3.8 3.8 4.8 26.8 3. 1.3 2.9 8.3 1.3 3.0 1.7 13.1 1912 Min. 600 1290 1325 495 450 575 3215 160 435 460 480 200 1435 Per cent. 5.0 10.8 11.0 4.1 3.8 4.8 26.8 1.3 3.7 7.3 3.8 4.0 1.7 12.0
It is interesting to note the increase in time devoted to music, nature study, and manual training if taken to include drawing, and the decrease in time devoted to English; more important still, note the decrease in the so-called unassigned time.
A reading of our course of study and a comparison of it with those of inland cities would not even suggest that New York City with its immense foreign population has a unique educational problem differing radically from that of cities in which the bulk of the population is of native stock. New York is the largest Jewish city in the world, the second largest Italian city, the third largest Russian city. It is stated that in the elementary schools of the city there are children of at least fifty-four nationalities. The differences in language, ideals, and customs of these groups tends to make the problem of “benevolent assimilation” essentially the work of the public school. Such work cannot be successfully done under a curriculum which has been aptly characterized as static and inflexible.3 As I stated in my earlier article in The Psychological Clinic,4 ‘ McMurry, Frank, Reports upon the Quality of Classroom Instruction, Course of Study, and Supervision by Principals, issued by Committee on School Inquiry, 51 Chamber Street, New York.
4 See Age and Progress in a New York City School, The Psychological Clinic, Vol. vi, No. 8, January 15, 1913, p. 209. sociological facts like these are the basis of a plea for a minimum course of study, giving a large percentage of unassigned time to be distributed at the discretion of local supervisors in accordance with the needs of a particular locality.
Moreover a uniform course of study extending over a period of eight years is based on the assumption that the school population is homogeneous not only as regards nationality but also as regards ability. Such a conception is not in accord with recent investigations. A study of children in the Vineland schools conducted under the supervision of the New Jersey Training School and published by Superintendent Johnstone affords interesting testimony. Testing 1547 “average” pupils by the Binet scale, they found that 349 children were from one to four years better than normal, 582 were normal, and 616 were from one to six years retarded. A cur- ? riculum based on the assumption that as regards mentality children are “about the same” or “all about alike” inevitably fails to meet the requirements of actual conditions. The curriculum must provide not only for differences in average ability, but also for differences among individuals of the same average ability.5 An increasingly large number of principals in our system are coming over to the point of view expressed by Professor Snedden in the statement, “A uniform course of study for an entire cosmopolitan city, prescriptive as to most of its features, is a pedagogical absurdity and offense.”
Another problem worthy of consideration in connection with curriculum making is the length of the course for elementary school pupils. A solution of this cannot be found unless we can determine the period of growth during which a child should be subjected to the conditions prevailing in the average elementary schools. Shall we take the advent of puberty to mark the close of this period? As more data become available, the opinion that we should do so is becoming more wide-spread. This would fix the limits of elementary schooling at six and fourteen years. As Dr C. Ward Crampton has shown,6 pubescence as a rule is accompanied by certain characteristics, physical, mental,’ and emotional, which render it advisable to subject pupils of this type to a different regimen from that adapted to prebubescent pupils. This idea conforms to the general spirit of our compulsory educational law, but of course assumes a physiological rather than a chronological age limit. Despite the great elimination in the seventh and eighth years of our present course, * See alxo Jones, Elmer E., Individual Differences in School Children, Tiik Psychological Clinic, vol. vi, no. 9. February 15, 1913, p. 241. ?Crampton, C. Ward, The Influence of Physiological Age upon Scholarship, The Psychological Clinic, Vol. i, No. 4, June 15, 1907, p. 115.
us evidenced by the fact that only 42 per cent of the pupils enrolled in the grades complete the course of study, there are 12,000 more adolescent pupils in the elementary grades of the schools of this city than there are in all the city’s high schools. In other words, as Dr Frank Bachman pointed out in his recent report on “Promotion, Non-promotion and Part Time,” from the standpoint of age the New York City elementary schools are an elementary school, a high school, and a college, all with one uniform maximum curriculum. Should not these adolescents standing on the threshold of industrial life be grouped in prevocational schools in which they will receive, in addition to instruction in formal subjects, such instruction relating to the constructive activities as will develop taste and abilities of distinct economic value?
Another point worth considering is that even though we fix an arbitrary chronological eight year limit, the amount of work to be covered within that time is practically determined by the average attendance of pupils completing the eight year course. Dr Bachman finds that in New York City 7.2 years represents the average attendance of such pupils. That is to say, a course of study intended to cover an eight year period should not be heavily overloaded but should be easily completed in less than eight years.
Summarizing the foregoing discussion we may say that unless the problem of the curriculum is interpreted in terms of definite, authenticated social and psychological facts, we may deceive ourselves into assuming that certain accepted principles will insure a curriculum and a practice that conform to the needs of the situation. Tradition, opinion, or textbook definitions of the educational process consisting of Latin nouns and long descriptive adjectives occasionally inspire and clarify progress, but more frequently hinder and befog. It has been well said, “We should do our utmost to escape the bond of opinion and to meet the actual conditions of life with accurate adjustments.” General statements of the meaning of education and hypothetical statements as to the makeup of an ideal course of study, irrespective of the peculiar local conditions which a study of the situation would probably reveal, have unwittingly led to the imposition upon our school system of a uniform encyclopedic course of study, the fruits of which have been futile effort and exhaustion on the part of pupil and teacher, and perennial caustic criticism from the facile pen of the pragmatic layman.
In view of the fact that during the next year there will probably be considerable revision of the New York course of study, it may not be inadvisable, by way of conclusion, to make some suggestions with reference to the possible participants in such revision. The cooperation of intelligent men and women in the community, whether or not they be members of the Board of Education, should certainly be enlisted. If the word intelligent be understood as meaning that the individual citizen and the civic or industrial organization represent such breadth of culture and such keenness of social insight based upon extended experience as will enable them to appreciate the conditions that the average pupil must face, their cooperation is to be heartily commended. Indeed Superintendents Gustav Straubenmuller and Albert Shiels have been markedly successful in securing the active cooperation of industrial organizations with the work of the vocational school and elementary evening schools. Frequently however laymen are not competent to appreciate the complexity of the problem involved, and become extreme advocates of either the so-called “fads and frills” or of the “three R’s”. Less frequently, because of special knowledge or special interests they become advocates of particular subjects as music or nature study.
If teaching is a profession on a par with law or medicine, no board of superintendents should consider that its function is to register automatically what purports to be judgment of the community until that judgment has been subjected to careful scrutiny to insure its conformity with the needs of the situation. Too frequently the opinion voiced with the loudest noise and greatest emphasis is that of a limited rather than of a representative group. It is the fundamental duty of school experts to keep in close touch with social progress and to invite constructive criticism. Any supervisory board which becomes bureaucratic either because of the dominating personality of a courageous leader or because of a red tape procedure in the conduct of official business, tends to prevent frequent adjustments of school conditions to social needs, and in so far as it does this it is an unqualified evil.
The special supervisor, the expert on subject matter, is also responsible for many of our ills. Once let it be granted that the subject is to be taught and the expert considers it his bounden duty to enlarge his problem until the complete body of thought and practice, whether in music, physical training, arithmetic, or technical grammar, is incorporated into the syllabus. Very frequently a board of superintendents or a board of education, because of a felt want of knowledge of a technical subject, uncritically accepts the overloaded syllabus which the specialist offers for adoption. Even though the state law and the course of study indicate minimum requirements as regards topics, the syllabi are practically mandatory maxima.
Cordial cooperation on the part of laymen and professional experts, among the latter being included not only superintendents but also principals and teachers working in the light of professional knowledge gained through personal experience and official questionnaires, should enable any school system to produce an effective course of study. All syllabi should be regarded as tentative until checked by teachers in the light of classroom practice. In other words the work of the experts should be to outline on the basis of intimate knowledge, varied minimum courses of study to be tried out in the different sections of the city to which they are best adapted. Such a scheme is perfectly consistent with the maintenance of proper academic standards. Piecemeal revision, at frequent intervals, as experience shows to be desirable, will tend to do away with the static, inflexible courses of study which now prevail. The present uniform maximum courses of study were prepared and continue to exist on paper in utter disregard of changes in the social group and of variations in ability, length of school career, etc., within the group of pupils. Moreover a failure to encourage a spirit of initiative and cooperation among those whose task it is to execute the paper demands of a course of study, and a failure to provide for official channels through which constructive criticisms can be made, have frequently developed conditions that run absolutely counter to all the qualities of flexibility and changeability that an ideal course of study should possess.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.