Whatever adjustment the school may be able to make in terms of providing
special classes for those who are mentally or physically deficient, or
for those who are especially capable, there will always be found in any
given group a wide variation in achievement and in capacity. Group
teaching and individual instruction will always be required of teachers
who would adapt their work to the varying capacities of children. A
period devoted to supervised study during which those children who are
less able may receive special help, and those who are of exceptional
ability be expected to make unusual preparation both in extent and in
quality of work done, may contribute much to the efficiency of the
school. As paradoxical as the statement may seem, it is true that the
most retarded children in our school systems are the brightest.
Expressed in another way, it can be proved that the more capable
children have already achieved in the subjects in which they are taught
more than those who are tow or three grades farther advanced. Possibly
the greatest contribution which teachers can make to the development of
efficiency upon the part of the children with whom they work is to be
found in special attention which is given to capable children with
respect to both the quantity and quality of work demanded of them,
together with provision for having them segregated in special classes or
passed through the school system with greater rapidity than is now
common. In an elementary school with which the writer is acquainted, and
in which there were four fifth grades, it was discovered during the past
year that in one of these fifth grades in which the brighter children
had been put they had achieved more in terms of ability to solve
problems in arithmetic, in their knowledge of history and geography, in
the quality of English composition they wrote, and the like, than did
the children in any one of the sixth grades. In this school this
particular fifth grade was promoted to the seventh grade for the
following year. Many such examples could be found in schools organized
with more than one grade at work on the same part of the school course,
if care were taken to segregate children in terms of their capacity. And
even where there is only one teacher per grade, or where one teacher
teaches two or three grades, it should be found possible constantly to
accelerate the progress of children of more than ordinary ability.
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