For the pupil, organization means a degree of flexibility and individual
instruction extraordinary for a public school. Except in the lowest
grades, the pupils are classified by subjects as well as by grades, so
that practically college methods obtain. Each pupil has his own schedule
or program, just as the college student has. The executive principal
corresponds to the college registrar in supervising these individual
records. The pupil is promoted by subjects and not by grades, and may be
promoted or demoted at any time by the supervisor of instruction, acting
with the teacher. Grades, therefore, represent merely years of schooling
and not classes which are promoted as units. Each regular class has a
maximum register of forty, but the class does not work as a unit, any
more than a college class of sophomores works as a unit. Some are taking
one group of subjects, some another. The work is thus done largely in
small groups, or even as individuals. The great wealth of equipment and
the economical use of time permit a large amount of practically
individual instruction.
The students of each grade are classified into three groups—rapid,
normal, and slow workers. The rapid workers can easily complete the
twelve years’ course in ten years. They may then enter college at
sixteen years of age. The great majority of the Gary pupils who go to
college actually come from this rapid-working group. The normal workers
complete the course in twelve years, and the slow workers in fourteen.
Many of the slow workers do not attempt to complete the course, but
specialize in the industrial departments. This grouping contemplates the
recognition of differences in the mental endowments and ambitions of
children of the same age, so that means are provided for the shortening
of school life for some children and the lengthening of it for others.
Every child is, as far as possible, working along with his equals, so
that the bright child is not held back and rendered listless by the
presence of slower members in the class, nor is the slow child
discouraged by the competition of the brighter ones. Every pupil may go
as fast as he can, and may specialize on the work which he can best do.
The presence of a great variety of activities makes it possible for the
children who falter on their intellectual work to give more attention to
the manual or artistic or physical work in which they may excel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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