The High School Failures Part 13

It is indeed striking how failures of the pupils are grouped under particular subjects of difficulty, and how the pupils fail again and again in the same general subject. No educational expert would seem to be needed to diagnose a goodly number of these chronic cases of failing and to detect a productive source of the whole trouble if only the following distribution were presented to him.

DISTRIBUTION OF PUPILS ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF TIMES THEY HAVE FAILED IN THE SAME SUBJECT

No. of Times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14

Boys 2852 1416 425 196 73 25 2 4 1 1 1 0 1 Girls 2812 1722 501 250 98 31 7 8 3 1 0 3 0

By 'same subjects' the same general divisions are designated, as English, Latin, mathematics. We may be led to note first that a major portion of the above distribution of pupils belongs to those who fail but once in the same subject; but then we note that by far the greater number of failures comprised by that distribution belong to those who fail two or more times in the same subject. To state that fact more specifically, 68.5 per cent of the total 17,960 failures involved in this study are made by two or more failures in the same subject, while 31.5 per cent of the failures belong to a more promiscuous and varied collection of failures, of not more than one in any subject. It will be noted here that some subjects do not have a greater continuity than one year or even one semester on the school program. Such subjects provide the least possibility of successive failures in the same field. A further a.n.a.lysis shows that the failures incurred by three or more instances occurring in the same subject form 33.6 per cent of the entire number; and that 18 per cent of the total is comprised of four or more instances of failure in the same subject. There is small probability that such a multiplication of failures by subjects will characterize the subjects which are least productive of failures in general, and such is not the case in fact. Latin and mathematics are again the chief contributors, and this would seem to be a fact also for those schools quoted from outside of this study, for purposes of comparison in Chapter II.

The above distribution speaks with graphic eloquence of how the school tends to focus emphasis on the subject prescribed and then to demand that the pupil be fitted or become fitted to the courses offered. Such heaping up of failures will more likely mark those subjects which seem to the pupil to be furthest from meeting his needs and appealing to his interests.

In two of the schools studied, an X, Y, and Z division was formed in certain difficult subjects for the failing pupils, by which they take three semesters to complete two semesters of work. This plan, as judged by results, is obviously insufficient for such pupils and tends to prove further that the kind of work is more at fault in the matter of failing than is the amount. Frequently a pupil who fails in the A semester (first) will also fail in the X division of that subject as he repeats it, while at the same time his work is perhaps not inferior in the other subjects. The data for these special divisions were not kept distinct in transcribing the records, so that it is not possible to offer the tabulated facts here. There are numerous recognized ill.u.s.trations of how some pupils find some particular subject as history, mathematics, or language distinctively difficult for them.

4. AN INDICTMENT AGAINST THE SUBJECT-MATTER AND THE TEACHING ENDS, AS FACTORS IN PRODUCING FAILURES

The evidence already disclosed to the effect that the high school entrants are highly selected, that few of the failing pupils lack sufficient ability for the work, that they have manifested their ability and energy in diverse ways, and that particular subjects are unduly emphasized and by the uniformity of their requirement cause much maladjustment, largely contributing to the harvest of failures, seems to warrant an indictment against both the subject-matter and the teaching ends for factoring so prominently in the production of failures. There is clearly an administrative and curriculum problem involved here in the sense that not a few of the failures seem to represent the cost at which the machinery operates. This is in no sense intended as a challenge to any subject to defend its place in the high school curriculum, but it is meant to challenge the policy of the indiscriminate requirement of any subject for all pupils, allowing only that English of some kind will usually be a required subject for the great majority of the pupils. It is simply demanded that Latin and mathematics shall stand on their own merits, and that the same shall apply to history and science or other subjects of the curriculum. So far as they are taught each should be taught as earnestly and as efficiently as possible; but it should not be asked that any teacher take the responsibility for the unwilling and unfitted members of a cla.s.s who are forced into the subject by an arbitrary ruling which regards neither the motive, the interest or the fitness of the individual.

This indictment extends likewise to the teaching method or purpose which focalizes the teachers' attention and energy chiefly on the subject. Certain basic a.s.sumptions, now pretty much discredited, have led to the avowed teaching of the subject for its own sake, and often without much regard to any definite social utility served by it. This charge seems to find an instance in the handling of the subject of English so that 16.5 per cent of all the failures are contributed by it, without giving even the graduate a mastery of direct, forceful speech, as is so generally testified. Strangely enough, except in the light of such teaching ends, the pupils who stay through the upper years and to graduate have more failures in certain subjects than the non-graduates who more generally escape the advanced cla.s.ses of these subjects. The traditional standards of the high school simply do not meet the dominant needs of the pupils either in the subject-content or in the methods employed. Some of these traditional methods and studies are the means of working disappointment and probably of inculcating a genuine disgust rather than of furnishing a valuable kind of discipline. The school must provide more than a single treatment for all cases. In each subject there must be many kinds of treatment for the different cases in order to secure the largest growth of the individuals included. This does not in any sense necessitate the displacement of thoroughness by superficiality or trifling, but on the contrary greater thoroughness may be expected to result, as helpful adaptations of method and of matter give a meaningful and purposeful motive for that earnest application which thoroughness itself demands.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER VI

The pupil is but one of several factors involved in the failure, yet the consequences are most momentous for him.

The pupils who lack native ability sufficient for the work are not a large number.

The high school graduates represent about a 1 in 9 selection of the elementary school entrants, but in this group is included as high a percentage of the failing pupils as of the non-failing ones.

The success of the failing pupils in the Regents' examinations, and also in their repeating with extra schedules, bears witness to their possession of ability and industry.

In the semester first preceding and that immediately subsequent to the failure, 72 per cent of all the grades are pa.s.sing, 20 per cent are A's or B's. Many of them "can if they will."

The early elimination of pupils, the number that fail, and the notable cases of non-success in school are evidence of something wrong with the kind of education.

The characteristic culmination of failures for Latin and mathematics can hardly be considered a part of the pupils' responsibility.

Of all the failures 68.5 per cent are incurred by instances of two or more failures in the same subject.

Much maladjustment of the subject a.s.signments is almost inevitable by a prescribed uniformity of the same content and the same treatment for all.

The traditional methods and emphasis probably account for more disappointment and disgust than for valuable discipline.

REFERENCES:

47. Maxwell, W.H. _A Quarter Century of Public School Development_, p.

88.

48. Van Denburg, J.K. _The Elimination of Pupils from Public Secondary Schools_, p. 183.

49. Annual Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1917.

50. Thorndike, E.L. _Educational Psychology_, Vol. II, Chap. I.

51. Swift, E.J. _Mind in the Making_, Chap. I.

52. Thorndike, E.L. _Elimination of Pupils from School_, U.S. Bull. 4, 1907.

53. Meredith, A.B. _Survey of the St. Louis Public Schools_, 1917, Vol.

III, pp. 51, 40.

CHAPTER VII

WHAT TREATMENT IS SUGGESTED BY THE DIAGNOSIS OF THE FACTS OF FAILURE?

It is not the purpose of this chapter to formulate conclusions that are arbitrary, fixed, or all-complete. There are definite reasons why that should not be attempted. The author merely undertakes to apply certain well recognized and widely accepted principles of education and of psychology, as among the more important elements recommending themselves to him in any endeavor to derive an adequate solution for the situation disclosed in the preceding chapters. The significance of those preceding chapters in reference to the failures of the high school pupils is not at all conditioned by this final chapter. Since as a problem of research the findings have now been presented, it is possible that others may find the basis therein for additional or different conclusions from the ones suggested here. For such persons Chapter VII need not be considered an inseparable or essentially integral part of this report on the field of the research. Indeed the purpose of this study will not have been served most fully until it has been made the subject of discussion and of criticism; and the treatment that is recommended here will not necessarily preclude other suggestions in the general effort to devise a solution or solutions that are the most satisfactory.

It appears from the a.n.a.lysis made in Chapter VI of the pupils'

capability and fitness relative to the school failures that it is impossible to make any definite apportionment of responsibility to the pupils, until we have first frankly faced and made an effective disposition of the malfunctioning and misdirection as found in the school itself. It does not follow from this that any radical application of surgery need be recommended, but instead, a practical and extended course of treatment should be prescribed, which will have due regard for the nature and location of the ills to be remedied.

Anything less than this will seem to be a mere external salve and leave untouched the chronic source of the systematic maladjustment. It is not a.s.sumed that a school system any more than any other inst.i.tution or machine can be operated without some loss. But the failure of the school to make a natural born linguist pa.s.s in a subject of technical mathematics is perhaps unfortunate only in the thing attempted and in the uselessness of the effort.

We must take into account at the very beginning the fundamental truth stated by Thorndike,[54] that "achievement is a measure of ability only if the conditions are equal." Corollary to that is the fact that the same uniform conditions and requirements are often very unequal as applied to different individuals. The equalization of educational opportunity does not at all mean the same duplicated method or content for all. That interpretation will controvert the very spirit and purpose of the principle stated. Any inflexible scheme which attempts to fashion all children into types, according to preconceived notions, and whose perpetuity is rooted in a psychology based on the uniformity of the human mind, simply must give way to the newer conception which harmonizes with the psychic laws of the individual, or else continue to waste much time and energy in trying to force pupils to accomplish those things for which they have neither the capacity nor the inclination. It is accordingly obligatory on the school to give intelligent and responsive recognition to the wide differentiation of social demands, and to the extent and the continuity of the individual differences of pupils.

1. ORGANIZATION AND ADAPTATION IN RECOGNITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ABILITIES AND INTERESTS

If the school failures are to be substantially reduced, the teaching of the school subjects with the chief emphasis on the pupil must surely replace the practice of teaching the subjects primarily for their own sake. This 'subject first' treatment must give place to the 'pupil first' idea. No subject then will overshadow the pupil's welfare, and the pupil will not be subjected to the subject. Education in terms of subject-matter is well designed to produce a large crop of failures.

Neither the addition or subtraction of subjects is urged primarily, but the adaptation and utilization of the school agencies so as to make the pupils as efficient and as productive as possible, by recognizing first of all their essential lack of uniformity in reference to capacities and interests,--not only as between different individuals, but in the same individual at different ages, at different stages of maturity, and in different kinds of subjects. This conception precludes the school employment of subjects and methods for all alike which are obviously better adapted to the younger than to the older. Neither does it overlook the fact that the att.i.tude of more mature pupils toward authority and discipline is essentialy different from that of the younger boys and girls; that a subject congenial to some pupils will be intolerable and nearly if not quite impossible for others; or that an appeal designed mainly to reach the girls will not reach boys equally well. In brief, the treatment proposed here is neither radical nor novel, but it is simply the inst.i.tution of applied psychology as pertaining to school procedure. What the more modern experimental psychology has established must be utilized in the school, at the expense of the more obsolete and traditional. Psychology now generally recognizes the existence of what the general school procedure implies does not exist, namely, the wide range of individual differences.

The situation clearly demands that our public schools shall not, by clinging to precedent and convention, fall notably behind industry and government in appropriating the fruits of modern scientific research.

As the doctor varies the diet to the needs of each patient and each affliction, so must the school serve the intellectual and social needs of the pupils by such an organization and att.i.tude that the selection of subjects for each pupil may take an actual and specific regard of the individual to be served. The change all important is not necessarily in the school subject or curriculum, but rather a change in the att.i.tude as to how a subject shall be presented--to whom and by whom. The latter will also determine the character of the pupil's response and the subject's educational value to him. By securing a genuine response from the pupils a subject or course of study is thereby translated into pupil achievement and human results. The authority of the school is impotent to get these results by merely commanding them or by requiring all to pursue the same subject. An experience, in order to have truly educational value, must come within the range of the pupils comprehension and interest. Quoting Newman,[55]

"To get the most out of an experience there must be more or less understanding of its better possibilities. The social and ethical implications must somewhere and at some time be lifted very definitely into conscious understanding and volition." The pupil's responsiveness is then much more important both for securing results and for reducing failures than is any subject content or method that is not effective in securing a tolerable and satisfying sort of mental activity.

2. FACULTY STUDENT ADVISERS FROM THE TIME OF ENTRANCE

Not only the failure of pupils in their school subjects but the failure also of 13 per cent of them to remain in school even to the end of the first semester, or of 23.1 per cent to remain beyond the first semester (Tables V and VI)--of whom a relatively small number had failed (about )--make a strong appeal for the appointment of sympathetic and helpful teachers as student advisers from the very time of their entrance. One teacher is able to provide personal advice and educational guidance for from 20 to 30 pupils. The right type of teachers, their early appointment, and the keeping of some sort of confidential and unofficial record, all seem highly important.

Superintendent Maxwell mentioned among the reasons why pupils leave school[56] that "they become bewildered, sometimes scared, by the strange school atmosphere and the aloofness of the high school teachers." There is a strangeness that is found in the transition to high school surroundings and to high school work which certainly should not be augmented by any further handicap for the pupil. There are no fixed limitations to what helpfulness the advisers may render in the way of 'a big brother' or 'big sister' capacity. It is all incidental and supplementary in form, but of inestimable value to the pupils and the school. A further service that is far more unusual than difficult may be performed by the pupils who are not new, in the way of removing strangeness for those who are entering what seems to them a sort of new esoteric cult in the high school. The girls of the Washington Irving High School[55] of New York City recently put into practice a plan to give a personal welcome to each entering girl, and a personal escort for the first hour, including the registration and a tour of the building, in addition to some friendly inquiries, suggestions, and introductions. The pupil is then more at home in meeting the teachers later. Here is the sort of courtesy introduced into the school that commercial and business houses have learned to practice to avoid the loss of either present or prospective customers. Some day the school must learn more fully that the faith cure is much cheaper than surgery and less painful as well.

3. GREATER FLEXIBILITY AND DIFFERENTIATION REQUIRED