CHAPTER VII

GROUPING PUPILS IN CLASSES

TRANSITION TO PROBLEMS OF INTERNAL ORGANIZATION

The preceding chapters have dealt, for the most part, with aspects of school organization which are external to the classroom and to the operations of instruction. The external organization is set up, however, for the sole purpose of making class work possible. We shall progress, therefore, in our statement of educational problems and principles by turning to the consideration in detail of the organization of the groups to which instruction is given.

The connection of this problem with the one discussed in the last chapter is not difficult to trace. Where a community is small and has few children, a one-room building will serve to house the school. Economy dictates the employment of a single teacher. This one teacher must divide his or her time as best possible in giving instruction to pupils some of whom are very young and others of whom are more mature. On the other hand, where the community is large or where the school is consolidated, a many-room building is required, and the lines of division between groups are drawn in a fashion quite impossible in the one-room school.

ECONOMY A FIRST MOTIVE FOR GROUPING

Some of the simplest motives back of the grouping of pupils into classes are financial. Instruction can be administered economically to a number of pupils when it would be prohibitively expensive to provide a teacher for each learner. Indeed, the demand for large classes in city schools becomes so urgent that it is often necessary to point out the danger of carrying economy so far that it will defeat the purposes of instruction.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE AN IMPORTANT MOTIVE

On the other hand, it can be shown that even where the motive of economy is not pressing, there are valid educational grounds for grouping pupils into classes. Pupils help each other through their natural social relations. The wholesome rivalry and mutual suggestiveness provided by the class furnish a much better atmosphere for teaching than does the isolation of individual instruction.

Somewhere between the huge class dictated by economy and the small class diminishing to a single individual is the ideal group in point of size for successful teaching.

GROUPING IN THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL

There are other characteristics than size, however, to be considered in making up proper groups. In order to discover some of these characteristics, it will be well to consider certain concrete types of grouping exhibited in schools.

The type of grouping in the one-room, one-teacher school is in many respects the freest which can be found. The teacher can organize the school with no conflicts in program, because the whole program consists in distributing his own time. The classes can be of any size that the teacher’s judgment determines. The reasons for the grouping are purely and simply those which appeal to the teacher.

Under such circumstances what happens? The teacher naturally puts in one group the pupils who are for the first time taking up school work. In other groups he puts those pupils who have approximately the same attainments in each subject. In the classes beyond the first many complications arise. There are some pupils who read well but seem to be deficient in knowledge of number. Other pupils with a taste for arithmetic are very forward in that branch and do only indifferently well in reading and spelling. It is not uncommon in the one-room school for the teacher to regard these differences in ability in particular subjects as adequate reasons for distributing the pupils differently in different subjects. It comes about in the course of time that one and the same pupil will be in the third reading class, in the fourth geography class, and in the fifth or sixth class in arithmetic, while another pupil who has attained to the fifth reader will be lingering behind in the third class in arithmetic.

COURSES OF INSTRUCTION IN RELATION TO THE PROBLEM OF GROUPING

We find ourselves led by the discussion of groupings to a consideration of different levels of difficulty in subjects of instruction and to the rate of progress of each individual in each subject. The teacher in the one-room school has no difficulty in seeing the wisdom of holding together those pupils who have a common grade of knowledge in geography. In like fashion the class in arithmetic must be as homogeneous as possible. There is, however, no recognized demand that a certain section of geography be coupled in the education of any child with any particular section of arithmetic. Pupils are grouped in the one-room school with reference to each subject considered by itself.

NEW PROBLEMS OF GROUPING IN LARGE SCHOOLS

When schools grow to the size where pupils are put into different rooms, as in an eight-room building, a problem arises which was never faced in the one-room school. It is the problem of carrying a group of pupils through all the subjects at the same rate. Thus, when the pupils in an ordinary city school have been grouped together in arithmetic, there are obvious advantages from an administrative point of view in keeping them together in reading and in geography. In ordinary practice the graded school assumes that it is possible to find means of keeping the group together for long periods in all subjects.

This assumption leads to the necessity of asking a kind of question which did not confront the teacher in the one-room school. The kind of question which comes up in the graded school can be illustrated as follows: When a pupil is old enough and intellectually mature enough to study the products and industries of North America in his geography, what phase of arithmetic will be appropriate to hold his attention and stimulate his thinking? When a pupil is old enough to read the history of his own city, what other reading material will insure real effort on his part?

The one-room school escapes these questions for the most part because it is at liberty to allow the pupil to take a different pace in each subject. The one-room school is a place where the subjects of instruction taken in their totality, or the curriculum, as the whole series of subjects may be called, is usually not recognized as important. Each subject has a sequence of its own, but the curriculum as a whole is not thought out. In the graded school the curriculum is one of the matters of major importance. The graded school not only grades pupils; it grades subject-matter of instruction. The importance of this contrast cannot be overemphasized. Many of the problems of the modern school arise at this point.

FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT VIEWS ON THE CURRICULUM

Let us consider certain cases which will make clear the importance of the contrast. The following extract from the report of the state superintendent of schools in Maine sets forth a definite view on the matters under discussion:

_More Careful System._ The number of pupils in ungraded schools is shown to be 29,089, a decrease of 1986 from the figures shown for the previous year. It is clear that the work of the schools is becoming more carefully systematized. This fact is further attested by the reduction in the number of schools not using a course of study. In 1904 there were 2323 schools that were reported as following no definite outline of studies. In 1913 this number had dropped to 827 and, as indicated by this report, has now been further reduced to 670. This change, already increasing to no small extent the efficiency of the schools, suggests a promise of the greater advantages that would follow the adoption of a course that would in essentials be uniform for the state. While an absolute uniformity that would prevent individual initiative and wise experimentation would retard progress and is not to be desired, there is much to be said in favor of an agreement on established and essential points for all parts of the state school system.[34]

On the other hand, practical efforts are being made in many quarters to overcome the rigidity of the graded system by devising methods of taking the individual out of the group whenever the course of study proves to be inapplicable to his particular needs. In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the elementary schools have their programs for the various grades so arranged that language comes for every grade at exactly the same hour in the day; in like fashion, all arithmetic classes are held at the same time, and so with geography and the other subjects. Through this arrangement it is possible for a child who is backward in a single subject to withdraw from the group with which he spends most of the day and to go for the period to another class where he receives a different type of instruction in the subject in which he is behind.

At Gary the schools are so organized that certain teachers in certain rooms teach a particular subject; the general freedom of organization secured in this way is utilized to shift pupils from room to room, thus breaking up the grading system. The possibilities of this arrangement are described in the following quotation:

If a boy is weak in some particular subject, it is possible to give him double work in that subject. Let us say a 4A boy is weak in arithmetic. It is possible for a time for him to omit some of his special activities and take arithmetic with the 4B class also, thus permitting double time in arithmetic. If he is weak in all of his regular studies it is easy to drop him out of his special activities for a time and permit him to do double work in the regular studies. The special activities are of such a sort that he can return to his classes there without difficulty.[35]

THE UNGRADED CLASS IN GRADED SCHOOLS

Another type of experiment is seen in the so-called ungraded class. In many large schools a room is set apart under an especially skillful teacher where pupils who are for any reason out of joint with the curriculum may receive personal attention. Many of these ungraded rooms are so conducted that bright pupils, through a little personal help, are prepared to skip a grade and thus advance more rapidly than the ordinary pupil. Backward children, especially those who are backward in only a single subject, are helped enough to restore them to their classes. Where it is found that pupils are subnormal and permanently unable to keep in line with others of like age, the ungraded class may become a special class. The teacher is then given authority to take all liberty with the subject-matter of instruction and fit it to the needs of the pupils. Sometimes in such special classes reading is practically abandoned and time is devoted to various forms of handwork.

CASES WHERE FAILURES SHOW THE URGENCY OF THE GRADING PROBLEM

The foregoing paragraphs have, it is to be hoped, made clear the fact that the grouping of pupils and the organization of the curriculum are closely interrelated problems. The same lesson can be taught by a study of the actual operations of certain school systems which are organized under the graded system.

Fig. 11 shows certain records of failures in the elementary schools of Cleveland for one half of the year 1914. A failure on the part of a child in any school can have no other meaning than this: the child was, at the time of his failure, in the wrong group for his intellectual advantage. There is no effort in such a remark to place the blame for the child’s failure. Perhaps the child who fails is indolent. Perhaps the work is too difficult for him. Whatever the reason, failure means that the pupil and the system of grading are out of joint with each other. Hence, when we find pupils failing, we know that the grading system is not working perfectly.

In the figure the diagram at the left shows the percentage of nonpromotions in each grade. About 17 per cent failed in the first grade, about 12 per cent in the second, and so on. It may be well to comment briefly on the high percentage in the first grade. This is due to the fact that some pupils enter school when they are immature. Many pupils lose a great many days of schooling in the first years through contagious diseases, which, as shown by school statistics, are contracted more commonly during the first years than later. The family does not take care of attendance as carefully in the first year as later. The first year supplies the test which in many cases brings evidence of mental deficiency. These and other reasons explain the high percentage of nonpromotions in the first year. The reduced percentage in the second year is explained by the fact that a part of the task of adjusting pupils to the graded system and to the curriculum has been accomplished in the first grade.

The record given in the diagram for the third, fourth, and fifth grades is an impressive exhibition of increasing incoördination between the pupils and the work of the school. So striking is the difficulty in these later grades that we are led to ask for an explanation. This is supplied in part by the diagram in the middle of the figure and by the one at the right. These present the records of failures in two of the most important school subjects.

A record of constantly diminishing failures in reading is exhibited in the middle diagram. This shows that the teachers judge that the pupils improve steadily in reading. There is a satisfactory response to the methods of teaching reading and to the demands of the upper grades. Those pupils who have difficulty in reading in the lower grades are held back or are helped to master the art. The evident fact is that improvement in reading is, according to the record, continuous and satisfactory.

The diagram at the right shows the record in arithmetic. Here is the cause of many of the nonpromotions shown in the diagram at the left. Failures mount up in the middle grades at a rate which shows with manifest clearness that something is radically wrong.

One may venture several remarks in the presence of such records. It does not seem likely that the pupils are stupid, since it is shown that they can read. It is to be noted that they do not have any option about taking arithmetic, nor do they determine what arithmetic they shall study. They are evidently not getting a section of arithmetic in each of the grades which suitably parallels the reading which is administered to them.

EFFORTS TO ADJUST INSTRUCTION TO PUPILS

The conditions shown in the figure are paralleled in many school systems. The result is that school officers, seeing the difficulty of doing justice to the pupils, have made radical changes in the grading system in order to meet individual needs. Two extracts from reports by superintendents will show the extent to which school systems will go.

A study of the performances of the failures in Boise has convinced the entire force that the repeater is generally a quitter, and does about as poor work in his second attempt as in his first trial at the work of a given grade. The stamp of disapproval has been placed upon him. He starts on his second attempt with a grievance against the teacher and the entire institution. The parents as well as the child feel injured, so that the teacher must combat both the antagonism of the home and the hostility of the pupil, who has been trained for failure and not for success, and who becomes either morbidly sensitive or brazenly indifferent. What the laggard would probably do as a repeater is therefore quite definitely known. If he were permitted to advance, he could hardly do worse and he might do better. It is less expensive and more human to promote him than it is to degrade him. This view of the situation is generally accepted in Boise. The standard for promoting the dull pupil is entirely individual. He is not compelled to do all the work of his present grade before he is permitted to pass to the next. He is even allowed to pass on without manifesting enough ability to justify the hope that he may be able to do the work of the advanced grade. The question is reduced to the one consideration: Would he do better if advanced than he would as a repeater?[36]

Ten years ago no pupil could enter the Newton High School, no matter what his age or educational need, who had not completed satisfactorily all the work of the grammar schools; and a considerable portion—probably one-third to one-half—of all Newton children were then leaving school at fourteen to sixteen years of age with only part of an elementary school education. To-day any boy or girl who needs secondary school instruction—and most boys and girls of high school age, fourteen or fifteen, do need such instruction—may enter some department of the Newton high schools, whether grammar school work has been completed or not; and nearly all—probably from eighty to ninety per cent—of our children are now getting secondary training before leaving school.[37]

READJUSTMENTS OF THE CURRICULUM

There are other and more fundamental remedies for some of the evils of the graded system. The curriculum can be readjusted. Where any considerable number of pupils fail in a particular subject, it is highly probable that the material of instruction or the method of presentation or both ought to be modified. In some cases pupils ought to be taken out of the regular grades and treated as special cases. The city of Cincinnati was a pioneer in recognizing the need of special curricula for special types of pupils. The whole country has in recent years come to recognize the importance of taking children who are mentally backward or slow out of the grades. Less commonly there is a recognition of the importance of specially arranged courses for the bright pupils.

In the city of St. Louis the curriculum of each grade is administered in units of ten weeks for each section. At the end of each ten weeks a readjustment is possible so that the bright pupils may go forward and the slow pupils may proceed more deliberately. There are at the end of each period of ten weeks a number of promotions which carry individual pupils forward two quarters. The curriculum is so arranged that a rapidly promoted pupil does not omit any essential part of the subjects, while the slow pupil has ample opportunity for drill and review.

The grading of the material used in instruction in particular subjects has also been recognized as a problem of the first importance. One of the most thoroughly studied subjects is spelling. Ayres[38] took the thousand words which several investigations had shown to be the most commonly used in ordinary life and tried them out on the pupils of eighty-four cities. As a result of those trials he is able to state that a certain list of words will be spelled with a given percentage of error by pupils of the third grade and with a less percentage of error by pupils of the fourth, fifth, and higher grades. Thus the material of instruction in spelling is graded, not by arbitrarily selecting what the teacher thinks will be appropriate, but by trying out the actual ability of pupils in eighty-four cities.

PROBLEMS OF GROUPING IN HIGH SCHOOL

Thus far the problem of grouping has been discussed from the point of view of the elementary school. The problems of the high school are different in detail, but no less impressive. In the first place, the failures in high-school subjects show the same lack of systematic ordering of the curriculum that was observed in the elementary records cited above. For example, from the survey of the Denver high schools we may borrow a series of percentages showing the failures in various subjects in the five high schools.

TABLE VI. PERCENTAGES OF FAILURES IN THE CHIEF SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION IN THE FIVE HIGH SCHOOLS OF DENVER IN JUNE, 1915[39]

============================================================== | East |North |South | West |Manual | High | High | High | High | High |School |School |School |School |School ——————————————————————+——————-+———-———+———-———+———————+——————- English I | 23 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 31 English II | 14 | 16 | 10 | 11 | 23 English III | 16 | 3 | 2 | 15 | 20 English IV | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 13 | | | | | Mathematics I | 23 | 24 | 26 | 28 | 50 Mathematics II | 17 | 21 | 28 | 20 | 19 Commercial arithmetic | 46 | 16 | 33 | — | — | | | | | Elementary science | 13 | 9 | 14 | 21 | 7 Botany | 21 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 24 Physics | 10 | 15 | 18 | 17 | 34 Chemistry | 0 | 4 | 14 | 6 | 20 Physiography | 11 | 15 | 12 | — | — | | | | | History | | | | | Ancient | 12 | 17 | 11 | 10 | 15 English | 12 | 17 | 7 | 5 | — Medieval and modern | 12 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 13 American | — | 7 | — | — | — | | | | | Latin I | 22 | 16 | 10 | 29 | 40 Latin II | 14 | 20 | 14 | 11 | 18 | | | | | German I | 20 | 15 | 24 | 5 | 19 German II | 19 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 ==============================================================

Table VI is worthy of careful study. Let us compare English I and II, which are required of all students, with Mathematics I and II, which are also required. In almost every case the percentage of failures in mathematics is greater. This goes to show either that the grading in mathematics is more exacting or that the students are less well qualified to carry the courses. The exception to the rule that mathematics shows more failures than English, which appears in the second year of the Manual High School, suggests that possibly the students in that school see the importance of mathematics as a professional course. The difficulty with this explanation is the enormous mortality in that school in the first-year course in mathematics. Perhaps the pupils who are likely to fail are dropped during the first year.

While the failures in mathematics are uniformly higher than in English, the policy of the different schools is strikingly different. In the East High School the two subjects are about alike, while in the West High School the failures in mathematics are relatively very high.

Such contrasts become more impressive if we draw the records in Latin into consideration. In the West High School, Latin in the first year is like mathematics, while in the South High School it is like English. Elementary science also shows wide divergences in practice.

A number of startling facts appear if the table is made a subject of careful study. What these facts mean is not difficult to set forth. The subjects now included in the curriculum of the high school are only imperfectly adjusted to the abilities of the students. The community has a right to question instruction which results in failure on the part of one student out of four. It certainly must be aroused at the lack of coördination between schools within a single system which show differences as marked as those exhibited in Table VI.

Other problems in the grading of high-school students and the subject-matter in which they are given instruction grow out of the laxity which has crept into the administration of the elective system. Thus, if we consider certain subjects which are open to students of different classes, such as the first course in Spanish or French or the course in ancient history, we find that senior students are allowed to enter the same class as freshmen because the organization of separate divisions would be too expensive. The result is either a reduction of the requirement in class work to the level of the more immature student or undue effort to bring the lower student to a reasonable understanding of the subject.

ILLEGITIMATE REASONS FOR PROMOTING PUPILS

The problems which have been pointed out will perhaps be seen most vividly if some types of promotion are cited which are likely to interfere with instruction.

Sometimes the school allows a pupil to move up a grade or class, although it is known that he has not done the work below, because the parents of the child have influence and it does not seem safe to antagonize them.

Sometimes the pressure of numbers in the lower grades or classes is so great that the teacher sends a pupil on in order to make room for the younger pupils, even when it is evident that the pupil will not be able to carry the higher work.

Sometimes the teacher in a given grade is anxious to unload the backward or disorderly and therefore incompetent pupil on someone else, and since the open road is into the next higher grade, the child is sent on.

Promotion is sometimes controlled by the calendar. Because the date for closing the schools has arrived, and the long vacation is at hand, pupils are declared to have completed the work whether they have or not.

Sometimes it is more or less explicitly argued that the backward pupil is larger than the other children of like intellectual attainments and he should therefore be sent to the upper-grade room where the seats are larger.

When such reasons for promotion are deliberately set down in black and white, they are evidently not legitimate reasons. Many a pupil has, however, been dealt with on exactly such grounds.

EXPERIMENTS AND STUDIES WHICH AIM TO SUPPLY BOTH INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTION AND CLASS INSTRUCTION

The indefensible reasons given above for advancing pupils ought to make anyone who expects to become a teacher the more ready to turn to the careful study of the problem. It is undoubtedly a social and financial necessity that pupils be grouped in classes. It is equally necessary for purposes of administration that the groups have some kind of permanency and some degree of internal uniformity. It is certainly legitimate that the individual’s needs be asserted to the extent of freeing him from absolute subordination to the interests of the group.

Such a statement of the case would seem to dictate a double type of instruction which will recognize more than does the present rigid class system the need of individual freedom and the value of class solidarity.

Many experiments have been tried in the effort to solve this problem. The Batavia system, so called, puts two teachers into a room, one to supervise individual work and one to teach groups. There are various systems of individual promotion which advance a pupil whenever he is ready.

Recently Principal Allen[40] of the high school of Springfield, Illinois, has developed a system of supervised study in which the students put themselves through certain prepared exercises and in this part of their work receive individual help and are allowed to progress at their own individual rate. Later the class meets for recitation as a group. The recitation group is made to depend for its composition on the rate at which students complete the individual exercises. The class is accordingly readjusted frequently, and in order to provide time for individual work the length of its meetings is somewhat less than the conventional high-school period.

The instructional plan thus arranged requires certain readjustments of the program and certain divisions of labor among the teachers which differ from the ordinary. But, above all, it calls for the separation of those aspects of the subjects of instruction which are suitable for individual work from those aspects which are suited to class exercises.

ARRANGEMENT OF THE MATERIALS OF INSTRUCTION

We are constantly brought back by our discussions of the organization of classes to a consideration of the curriculum. The materials of instruction are capable of advantageous and economical use only when they are adapted to pupils. Our next problem, therefore, is to consider some of the general principles which underlie the organization of the general curriculum and of particular subjects.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

What are some of the limitations in the training of a child who gets his education from a private tutor rather than as a member of a class? Show that the most satisfactory size for a class depends in large measure on the subject of instruction. In certain subjects, such as typewriting and bookkeeping, instruction often becomes almost purely individual instruction. Observe such a class and describe the method of instruction.

If terminology is employed in a strict way, a “course” refers to a series of lessons in a single subject, a “curriculum” to a coherent group of courses. What devices are adopted in high schools to compel students to think of curricula rather than courses? What are the advantages and what are the evils of the elective system?

What is the highest percentage of failures which ought to be tolerated in a class? What conditions affect your answer to the foregoing question? Is a “stiff” course the best course? What class in high school has the “stiffest” requirements?

Dealing with the illegitimate methods of promotion enumerated in the closing paragraphs of the chapter, describe some thoroughly practical method of handling each situation without making the mistake indicated.

HOLMES, W. H. School Organization and the Individual Child. The Davis Press, Worcester, Massachusetts. Contains a list of references on the subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Report of the State Superintendent of Public Schools of the State of Maine, for the School Year Ending June 30, 1914, p. 21.

[35] John Franklin Bobbitt, “The Elimination of Waste in Education,” in _Elementary School Teacher_, Vol. XII (1912), pp. 266-267.

[36] Special report of the Boise Public Schools (June, 1915), pp. 17-18.

[37] F. E. Spaulding, The Newton Public Schools, Annual Report of the School Committee, Newton, Massachusetts, Vol. LXXIV (1913), pp. 18-19.

[38] Leonard P. Ayres, A Measuring Scale for Ability in Spelling. The Russell Sage Foundation, 1915.

[39] The Work of the Schools. Part II of the Report of the School Survey of Denver, p. 158. Published by the School Survey Committee, Denver, Colorado, 1916.

[40] For a fuller discussion of this experiment, see pp. 237-238.