The responsibilities of the teachers for the auditorium period have been
discussed. Under the old Gary plan each auditorium period was in charge
of one teacher who acted as assistant principal. The teachers alternated
in organizing the dramatic and other features of the auditorium work.
Recently Superintendent Wirt has decided that this auditorium work
functions better if it is specialized. In the new 72-school program,
four teachers give their time exclusively to the auditorium exercises.
One teacher has charge of the music; one has charge of the art,
literature, history, civics, and current events; one has charge of the
presentation of material relating to the science work; and one has
charge of the presentation of the material relating to the shops and
industries. In a properly equipped auditorium, with stereopticon
lantern, motion-picture machine, stage, player-piano, organ, and
phonograph, the auditorium teachers can do many things better with large
numbers of children than the regular teachers can do with small numbers.
The regular classroom teachers are expected to coöperate in this
frequent presentation of work by their classes in the auditorium in
order to use it as a place for “application” work and for motivating the
academic work of the school.
In the new program, the “application” work is also specialized.
Experience has shown that some teachers have a special talent for this
imaginative and constructive side of teaching, and prefer to devote
their entire time to it. In this scheme, the “application” teachers have
six classes daily out of a total of twelve classes in each of their
respective groups. They are thus able to meet each of the twelve classes
of their respective groups every other day, week, month, or term. Or
these teachers may select from each of the groups of three classes the
pupils who need special work in language and mathematics, and meet these
pupils every day. For the average pupil all of the opportunity necessary
to make an application of his language and mathematics is provided in
the regular manual-training, drawing, music, and expression classes. The
“application” teachers meet their respective classes in the
manual-training, drawing, music, and expression rooms. The facilities of
these special rooms are used for “application” purposes. The
“application” teachers are expected to make suggestions to the special
teachers of these subjects concerning the opportunities to teach
language and mathematics through the “application” opportunities of the
regular work of their respective subjects. Each “application” teacher
may be constituted the head of a group of eight teachers. The
“application” teacher is the correlating agent for all the work of the
twelve classes; also she works with all of the twelve classes as a
constructive examiner, and is constantly placing before the children
real problems of the type that the world of industry, business, and
citizenship will place before them when they leave school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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