The Gary Schools

THE public-school system of Gary, Indiana, has attracted during the last few years the general attention of progressive educators all over the country as perhaps the most ingeni...

In the face of all these formidable difficulties the success of the Gary school system seems little short of amazing. In the short space of eight years the population has increa...

Mr. Wirt says that you never can tell when a child is learning. The time that he makes progress is not necessarily the recitation time. It is the constant impingement of impress...

If the school is to be the children’s community, there must be some place of general assembly, some forum or theater where the school may take stock of itself. This is provided...

────────────┬─────────────────────────────────── │ Time │ Studies for │ ────────────┼────────┬───────┬──────────┬─────── │ Group │Group 2│ Group 3 │Group 4 │ 1[2] │ │ │ ────────...

A 12-class school requires 8 classrooms and 12 teachers. A 24-class school requires 15 classrooms and 23 teachers. A 36-class school requires 22 classrooms and 33 teachers. A 48...

Vocational guidance in such a system is simple and effective. The “auditorium” teacher, in charge of the presentation of material relating to the shops and industries, is able t...

Visitors to the Gary schools bear witness to the peculiarly beneficial effects of this absence of formal discipline. The free and individual way in which the children move about...

The custom of “helpers and observers,” the emphasis on discussion rather than formal recitation, even take a certain amount of actual teaching out of the hands of the teachers....

The Gary plan, which includes all the grades in one school plant wherever possible, prevents these chasms more successfully than even such schemes as the junior high school whic...

THIS school was the first to be reorganized in New York City under the Gary plan. The following quotations from Superintendent Wirt’s report indicate the changes that were made...