The noteworthy thing about this program, apart from the ingenious and
successful multiple use of the school plant it represents, is the
equable distribution of time between the “regular studies” and the
“special activities.” In the Gary school, the “special work,” more or
less an appendage in the ordinary public school, is as regular as the
“regular work.” Yet the amount of academic work is no less than that in
the ordinary schools. The various fundamental groups are participated in
on equal terms. No subject is slighted, no age is slighted. The extended
school day, which absorbs the “street and alley time” of the city child,
affords ample opportunity for all activities. No activity is continued
long enough to cause fatigue, while the constant daily cultivation of
each activity provides the constant drill and the thoroughness of
training which the ordinary school, with its short day and crowded
curriculum, is compelled to slight. Such a program seems to be a highly
rational distribution of school activities, as ingenious from the point
of view of educational engineering as it is pedagogically sound. By
treating the daily use of the schools as a public service, the Gary
program obtains, for twice the number of children ordinarily
accommodated, twice the number of facilities ordinarily provided. Each
individual is immensely benefited because all are served. “The only
reason why the public—that is, ourselves collectively—can afford to
provide things for each of us individually that we cannot provide for
ourselves privately, is that collectively we secure a multiple use of
the facilities.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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