Part 8

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 to their tasks and the spontaneous way in which they talk to visitors make a marked impression. In classroom or laboratory or shop, it is usual to find about as much whispering as in a concert audience, with the same motives, freed of “rules of order,” for quiet. A natural atmosphere of orderly and tolerant conduct seems to be formed in such a school.

The writer witnessed an interesting study in spontaneous discipline in one of the Saturday voluntary classes at the Froebel School. The wood-working shop was filled with little boys who were fussing over the scraps left by the week’s work and trying to make toys and knick-knacks out of them. The teacher was in the room, but was exercising no control over the children. Yet each little boy worked on his own little job as indefatigably as if he were under a drill-master. If any of them became weary and was moved to interfere with another small worker, he was apt to be brushed off as if he were an irritating fly. The theory at the back of such freedom is that rules in the school tempt to infraction, and school discipline is, as a result, largely an attempt to solve problems which the rules directly manufacture. Some visitors, appalled by the freedom of the Gary schools, look about for signs of depredation. But they do not seem to find any. The visitor gets the impression that these schools have acquired a “public sense.” The schools are the children’s own institution, and are public in the same broad sense that streets and parks are public. The tone is of a glorified democratic club, where members are availing themselves of privileges which they know are theirs. One expects children, unless they are challenged to inventive wickedness, no more to spoil their school than a lawyer is likely to deface the panels of his club. The children seem in such a school unaffectedly to own it, and to use it as a mechanic uses his workshop or an artist his studio. The halls in the Gary school become really school streets. Benches are built by the pupils along the walls, where children are seen informally studying together. Or one comes upon a table where a boy is drawing a map, having been excused from recitation, on the theory that it is not necessary for every child to be exposed to every exercise of the class when he might do something more important outside. The children come with their parents to night school and play and run about the broad halls quite unwatched. The visitor gets the idea that children come to such a school, not because education is compulsory or because their parents send them there to get rid of them, but because what is done there is so interesting that they will not stay away. The equipment, used so freely, makes the school a substitute for the defects, not only of the poorer homes, but of the well-to-do also, in supplying activities for children.

One might say that only in a free and varied school like this was such a thing as effective discipline possible. When school activities are as attractive as they are in the Gary school, deprivation means a distinct punishment. There is ready at hand an instrument for inculcating reason into the refractory which is as powerful as the stoutest disciplinarian could wish. The ordinary school has its difficulties with discipline largely because it tries to keep up a military system of conduct without any means, now that corporal punishment is generally abolished, of punishing infractions. Marks prove ineffective, “keeping in” punishes the keeper as well as the kept, and being sent home is too often a pleasure. But in the Gary school, “being sent home” would mean being sent to a place infinitely less interesting, and being deprived of school play or any special activity would mean a real hardship. The free and spontaneous discipline of the Gary school does not mean that there is no discipline at all. Unruly cases are sometimes punished severely by the executive principal. But there is little talk about “mischievous and unruly boys.” Children who, in spite of everything, are “not adapted to our kind of a school,” may go to the school farm. This, however, is not a reform school for juvenile delinquents. Delicate children may be sent there for a vacation or classes go for a holiday. The farm contains a hundred acres, with a model dairy, good orchards, and substantial farm buildings. A graduate from one of the state universities is in charge, and is working to bring the farm up to a high pitch of cultivation and production. One group of boys who were there for a while, some of whom had come from homes surrounded by unwholesome conditions, others of whom wished to try farming for a livelihood, built themselves living quarters and a clubroom. They were provided with a teacher, and school work went on with the farm work. The boys received fifteen cents an hour for their work, and earned enough to pay their board and make something besides. These boys finally drifted back to the Emerson School or to work in the factories. But the farm remains as a valuable adjunct to the schools. Efforts are being made to make it a source of income and an object lesson to farmers in the vicinity.

Freedom of discipline is obtained in the Gary schools without the methods of “self-government” and “honor systems” which prevail elsewhere. Where the teachers retain all authority, such schemes can be little more than a humiliating pretense. For a time an elaborate self-government plan was tried in the Emerson School under the name of “Boyville,” with a sort of parody of municipal functions. But it seems to have been too unreal to last. It has been superseded by a “students’ council,” elected by the pupils of the upper grades, and exercising control over athletics, social, and other student affairs. This students’ council has executive charge of the “auditorium” periods, for which it elects a presiding officer and secretary, alternately a boy and a girl, every month. The elections for councilors are conducted in regular form, with ballots printed by the pupils in the school printing-shop. Booths are erected, judges appointed, and the election carried through, after a campaign, in which the parties meet, nominate a boy and girl for each office, and appoint a campaign manager who arranges a program for the campaign. The candidates make speeches, giving their views and the arguments for their policies.

Like everything in the Gary schools, this political practice is put into effect on a broader scale. During a recent campaign the students’ council in the Emerson School arranged a public meeting at which prominent men of the city appeared and argued for their respective parties. The meeting was entirely organized and managed by the pupils. Such practical application seems far more real and instructive than the usual play at self-government.

Student organization in the Gary schools grows out of real work. Athletic teams and sports of various kinds are connected directly with the gymnasium work and organized play. Glee clubs and orchestras grow out of the music work. A monthly paper is conducted by the high-school pupils as part of their English work, and printed by them in the school printing-shop. There are, strictly speaking, no “extra-curricular activities” in the Gary schools. The curriculum deliberately provides for all wholesome activities, and the student interests grow out of it. Problems of “fraternities” and of the control of school athletics, which confront so many schools, are thus avoided. The students do not get into the habit of thinking of their clubs and teams as something outside of the school community life.

An example of how spontaneous organization may spring up is that of the boys’ ninth-grade English class last year in the Emerson School, which formed itself into the Emerson Improvement Association. It tries to suggest civic improvements for the school community, and the speaking and writing necessary to the conducting of the affairs of the organization provide the basis for the English work.

This illustrates the way that effort is made to take advantage of all the spontaneity and initiative which pupils display in organization. The moral effects of this active form of education are clearly great. Professor Dewey thinks it is a mistake to consider that an interesting and free school “makes things too easy for the child.” In the ideal school the interests and needs of the child are identical. It is a mistake, he says, to think that interesting things are necessarily easy. They may be hard, but the interest overcomes the difficulty, and it is in the overcoming that the moral value lies. Irksome tasks may be valuable, but it is not in their irksomeness that their value lies. Work that appeals to pupils as worth while, that holds out the promise of resulting in something to their own or the school’s interests, involves just as much persistence and concentration as work given by the sternest advocate of disciplinary drill.

Most of the visitors to the Gary schools bear witness to the excellent tone of the pupils, “the free and natural way,” to quote one authoritative teacher, “in which pupils govern themselves without the rigorous discipline found in other systems.” Dr. Harlan Updegraff, of the Federal Bureau of Education, says, “The pupils of the Gary schools seem to display greater self-control, more self-respect, and more thoughtful consideration for others than the pupils of the same age in most of the better school systems of to-day. I am inclined to think that it comes largely from their games and play, but a part of it is due to the organization of the school, and to the practices that have evolved in its administration. No child in Gary has a single teacher who is the object of his hero-worship, upon whom he tends to become more or less dependent, or his arch-enemy whom he detests with a growing hatred. The Gary pupil has several teachers, each of whom affects him in a different way. He becomes more conscious of his individuality in this way, and learns to determine for himself what he should do and become. Under such a system the influence of fellow pupils becomes relatively stronger than in the ordinary school. It is, therefore, highly important that care be taken to further the development of right ideals in the student body. Organized play has its great value here. Self-control, coöperation, courage, self-respect, consideration for others, and a sense of justice have been developed in the Gary youth to a noticeable degree, largely, it seems to me, through the spirit that prevails in consequence of the administration of the physical training department. Pupils who love their school better than the streets, who have a good physical tone through their play and physical exercises, and who have good self-control and independence of thought, must naturally have a more favorable attitude toward school work.”

Such a school will evidently train character as a by-product. Self-activity, self or coöperative instruction, freedom of movement, _camaraderie_ with teachers, interesting and varied work, study, and play, a sense of what the school is doing, social introspection,—all combine to give an admirable moral training and to produce those desirable intellectual and moral qualities that the world most needs to-day. Not obedience but self-reliance does such a school cultivate.

VIII

CRITICISMS AND EVALUATIONS

THE criticisms directed against the Gary schools by superintendents and teachers are criticisms rather of the whole educational philosophy behind the institution than objections to the detailed working-out of the philosophy. Those who follow Professor Dewey’s philosophy find in the Gary schools—as Professor Dewey does himself—the most complete and admirable application yet attempted, a synthesis of the best aspects of the progressive “schools of to-morrow.”

Concrete criticisms almost all concern the alleged additional burdens laid upon the public, the teacher, and the pupil. As far as the public goes, the fact has been brought out that the Gary school is actually a cheaper kind of a school than is the ordinary public school, even when run in the most economical and scientific manner. The charge that the Gary schools are aided by private corporation enterprise has already been discussed. The facts are, of course, that the schools are all supported in the usual way, by local and state appropriations. The city of Gary is not overtaxed to support its schools, neither does the United States Steel Corporation pay more than its proportionate share of the local taxes. Nor is there any truth in the impression that the operation of the Gary plan is confined to the two larger school plants of the city. Although these two plants accommodate three quarters of the children of the city, the Gary plan is in operation in all the schools. In the two larger schools, Emerson and Froebel, the academic work extends from the kindergarten through all twelve grades. In the other schools there are no high-school students. Four of the other schools have eight grades, one has six, one is only for children in the kindergarten and first two grades. These schools have no high-school department because they are too small and the schools with high-school departments are easily accessible. All the schools have real shopwork, though in not all of them is the apprentice-repair feature possible. All the schools have play and recreation facilities. The smaller schools lack swimming-pools, but the children use the well-equipped Y.M.C.A. All the schools have “auditorium,” science, music, and expression work. All the schools either contain a branch of the public library or else use the main building near by. All the schools have an eight-hour day.

The charge that the Gary schools are too costly for imitation cannot be sustained. We have seen the ingenious efforts of the various features of the Gary plans to reduce costs, and there is a wealth of figures to show in detail the greater economy of the Gary plan. Superintendent Wirt has made an estimate that for an outlay of $6,000,000, “part-time” could be wholly abolished in the New York City public schools by an adoption of the Gary plan. The requisition of the board of superintendents in 1914 was for an appropriation of $40,000,000, simply for new buildings, which would require large sums for operation and maintenance and lack the equipments of the Gary plan. By the multiple use of facilities, Superintendent Wirt has shown that the number of school plants in New York could actually be reduced and yet the part-time of 132,000 children abolished. At the same time that this was done, the school day would actually be increased and the facilities more than doubled. A comparison between the _per-capita_ costs of instruction in the Gary and New York City schools, figured in average daily attendance for 1913-14, has been made by Mrs. Alice Barrows-Fernandez. (The Jefferson School in Gary is used for the comparison because it is more like the elementary schools in New York than any other school in Gary.)

_Pupil per-capita cost for Jefferson School, $31.72 Gary_, including instruction and supplies

_Pupil per-capita cost for elementary schools 40.24 in New York City_, including instruction and supplies

_Pupil per-capita cost for the two Gary schools which have kindergarten, elementary school, and full vocational shops_—

Emerson, with one third of the school 56.12 high-school pupils

Froebel, with twelve per cent high-school 32.85 pupils

_Pupil per-capita cost in New York City_—

Elementary schools 40.24

High schools 104.74

Vocational schools for boys 86.48

Vocational schools for girls 142.32

“In other words,” says Mrs. Barrows-Fernandez in her report, “in the Froebel School, which is typical of the average school because only twelve per cent of its pupils are in high school, twelve years in elementary school and high school costs the city for one pupil twelve times $32.85, or $394.20. In New York, eight years in elementary school costs the city for one student eight times $40.24, or $329.92, and four years in high school costs four times $104.74, or $418.96; or for the twelve years, $748.88. In Gary for the $394.20, a student could also get more vocational training than is given in a separate trade school. The New York boy would get none of this in the elementary school. Even if we make allowances for the fact that the average salary of teachers in elementary schools and high schools in New York City is one third higher than in Gary, it is obvious that the balance of economy is immensely in favor of Gary as against a large typical city school system operated on the conventional lines.”

It seems established that the Gary plan imposes no burdens upon the public, either in Gary or in the communities who imitate the plan, but rather provides increased facilities at reduced cost, besides immense facilities for adults. As for the burden upon the teacher, much has been said to the effect that the Gary plan is unpopular among teachers because of the extra work it entails. In connection with this criticism, it must be remembered that the Gary plan postulates an educational philosophy different from that of the ordinary public schools. Teachers trained in schools managed with rigid administrative and disciplinary methods naturally find adjustment difficult in a system which repeatedly calls upon them for initiative, alters their relations to their pupils, and requires a more practical attitude of “application” toward the subject-matter of instruction. Experience seems to show that many teachers who at first found this adjustment burdensome have later come to prefer the Gary plan. One teacher with a fine scholastic training, who had taught for many years under the traditional form of organization, is quoted by Dean Burris as saying, “I did not like it when I came here a year ago, but I begin to like it and see what it is all about, so I am going to stay.”

This attitude would seem to be typical of the intelligent teacher who comes to appreciate what it is all about and the valuable educational advantages which the system provides for the teacher herself. And although the problem of securing teachers has been somewhat difficult in Gary, owing to the newness of the town, the large factory population, and the relative absence of organized social life, most visitors are impressed by the unusual personal caliber of the head teachers.

It is difficult to see where the Gary plan involves extra burdens for teachers. The teaching period is only four hours a day, with an hour for “auditorium” and an hour for “application.” This is certainly no more exacting than the five-hour teaching day of the ordinary teacher. All “home work” and “paper work,” moreover, is supposed to be done by the Gary teacher during school hours, so that her school day is over when the bell rings. This makes her real school day actually shorter than that of the teacher in the ordinary school, whose afternoons and evenings must often be spent in correcting papers, etc. The Gary teacher is supposed to have leisure and to behave in school and out of school as a good citizen actively interested in the community welfare. The Saturday school work, for which the teachers are called upon in turn, is paid for at a rate of one dollar an hour. The care and work involved in the “register-teacher” plan is certainly offset by its valuable educational value for the teacher herself.

It should be clear that the various features of the Gary plan tend to relieve the teacher of burdens and particularly of nervous strain. The teaching of special subjects by special teachers relieves the grade teacher of the obligation of teaching, under the exacting direction of supervisors, subjects like music and drawing with which she may be little acquainted. The departmentalizing of subjects down through the lower grades gives a breadth to the teachers’ work, and enables them to concentrate on the subjects which interest them, rather than diffuse their attention among many. The absence of uniform standards, the absence of formal term examinations for which a whole class must be prepared, the promotion of children by subjects rather than whole classes, as well as the division of grades according to rate of progress,—all this makes for a great saving in the teacher’s nervous energy. She does not have the strain of passing her whole class in every subject, of finishing her course on schedule time, of cramming for examinations. She has some freedom in the division of her time and a voice in the making of the course and curriculum. The less experienced teacher has in her classroom the assistance and advice of the senior teacher, as well as of the head teacher of her subjects in the head school. Teachers are not rivals, but colleagues as in a college faculty.

The freer methods of discipline are much to the teacher’s advantage. When the ideal is no longer to keep the classroom in a rigid military silence, a large part of the teacher’s energy may go into teaching which formerly went into the maintenance of discipline. Where “interest” and “application” and “learning by doing” are the keynotes, and where every one—teacher and pupil alike—is at some time in the course both teaching some one and learning from some one, the teacher is no longer interested in “making the child obey,” or “commanding his respect.” No official gulf is set between teachers and pupils. It is discipline that wears out most teachers,—and children too,—and a greater flexibility makes for the lessening of nervous strain on both.