Chapter 9
DO THE FAILURES REPRESENT A LACK OF CAPABILITY OR OF FITNESS FOR HIGH SCHOOL WORK ON THE PART OF THOSE PUPILS?
In view of the fact that some of the pupils do not fail in any part of their school work, there is a certain popular presumption that failure must be significant of pupil inferiority when it occurs. That connotation will necessarily be correct if we are to judge the individual entirely by that part of his work in which he fails, and to assume that the failing mark is a fair indication of both achievement and ability. Although the pupil is only one of the contributing factors in the failure, nevertheless it happens that cherished opportunity, prizes, praise, honors, employment, and even social recognition are frequently proffered or withheld according to his marks in school. Still further, the pupil who accumulates failures may soon cease to be aggressively alive and active; he is in danger of acquiring a conforming attitude of tolerance toward the experience of being unsuccessful. Therefore it is particularly momentous to the pupil, should the school record ascribed to him prove frequently to be incongruous with his potential powers. It has already been pointed out in these pages that the failures frequently tend to designate specific difficulties rather than what is actually the negative of 'ability plus application.' This does not at all deny that in some instances there appears to be the ability minus the application, and that in other cases the pupils are simple unfitted for the work required of them.
1. SOME ARE EVIDENTLY MISFITS
There is a strong presumption that many of the 485 pupils who failed in 50 per cent of their school work and dropped out (reported in Chapter IV) represent misfits for at least the kind of school subjects offered or required. One cannot say that even hopeless failing in any particular subject is a safe criterion of general inability, or that failure in abstract sort of mental work would be a sure prophecy of failure in more concrete hand work. It is altogether probable that some of the individuals in the above number were not endowed to profit by an academic high school course, and that others were the restless ones at a restless age, who just would not fit in, whatever their abilities. But even of these pupils a considerable number display sufficient resourcefulness to satisfy many of their failures and to persist in school two, three, or four years. There are perhaps at least a few others who, without failing, drop out early, prompted by the conviction of their own unfitness to succeed in the high school. Yet collectively this group is by no means a large one. This conclusion is in harmony with the judgment of former Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City,[47] who stated that "the number of children leaving school because they have not the native ability to cope with high school studies, is, in my judgment, small." Likewise Van Denburg[48] reached the conclusion that "at least 75 per cent of the pupils who enter (high school) have the brains, the native ability to graduate, if they chose to apply themselves." With many who fail not even is the application lacking, as the facts of section 2 will seem to prove.
2. MOST OF THE FAILING PUPILS LACK NEITHER ABILITY OR EARNESTNESS
When we take into account that by the processes of selection and elimination only thirty to forty per cent of the pupils who enter the elementary school ever reach high school,[49] it is readily admitted that the high school population is a selected group, of approximately 1 in 3. Then of this number we again select less than 1 in 3 to graduate. This gives a 1 in 9 selection, let us say, of the elementary school entrants. For relatively few general purposes in life may we expect to find so high a degree of selection. Yet in this 1 in 9 group (who graduate) the percentage of the failing pupils is as high as that of the non-failing ones, and the percentage of graduates does not drop even as the number of failures rise. So far as ability is required to meet the conditions of graduation they are manifestly provided with it. Following this comparison still further, the failing pupils who do not graduate have an average number of failures that is only .6 higher than for the failing graduates (4.9-4.3); but barring those non-graduates considered in section 1 of this chapter, the average is practically the same as for the failing graduates. Moreover, the failing non-graduates continue in school, even in the face of failure, much longer than do the non-failing non-graduates. That gives evidence of the same quality to which the manager of a New York business firm paid tribute when he said that he preferred to employ a high school graduate for the simple reason that the graduate had learned, by staying to graduate, how to 'stick to' a task.
The success of the failing pupils in passing the Regents' examinations does not give endorsement to the suggestion that they are in any true sense weaklings. That they succeed here almost concurrently with the failure in the school testifies that 'they can if they will,' or conversely, as regards the school subject, that 'they can but they won't.' Of course it is possible that differences in the type of examinations or in the standards of judgment as employed by the school and the Regents may be a factor in the difference of results secured. The great difficulty then seems to resolve itself into a technical problem of more successfully enlisting the energy and ability which they so irrefutably do possess in order to secure better school results, but perhaps in work that is better adapted to them. Again, the success with which these pupils carry a schedule of five or six subjects, besides other work not recognized in the treatment of this study, and retrieve themselves in the unattractive subjects of failure pleads for a recognition of their ability and enterprise. Their difficulty is without doubt frequently more physiological than psychological, except as they are the victims of a false psychology, that either disregards or misapplies the principles which Thorndike terms the law of readiness[50] to respond and the law of effect, and consequently depend largely on the one law of exercise of the function to secure the desired results.
Some additional evidence that the failing pupils can and do succeed in most of their subjects is provided by their earlier and later records, as disclosed by the total grades received for the semester first preceding and the one next following that in which the failure occurs. There were of course no preceding grades for the failures that occur in the first semester, and none succeeding those that occur in the last semester spent in school. It is quite apparent from the following distribution of grades that these pupils are far from helpless in regard to the ability required to do school work in general.
GRADES OF THE FAILING PUPILS IN THE SEMESTER NEXT PRECEDING THE FAILURES
Total A B C D
13,857 Boys 315 2883 6668 3991 17,264 Girls 245 2868 9509 4642
Per Cent of Total 1.8 18.5 52.0 27.7
GRADES OF THE FAILING PUPILS IN THE SEMESTER NEXT SUCCEEDING THE FAILURES
Total A B C D
14,724 Boys 319 2772 7406 4227 16,942 Girls 281 2788 9114 4759
Per Cent of Total 1.9 17.7 52.1 28.3
More than 20 per cent of the grades in the former and nearly 20 per cent of the grades in the latter distribution are A's or B's, 52 per cent more in each case are given a lower passing grade, while approximately 28 per cent in each distribution have failing grades. Though some tendency toward a continuity of failures is apparent, there is also evident a pronounced tendency in the main for pupils to succeed. That these same pupils could do better is not open to doubt. Teachers in two of the larger schools asserted that with many pupils a kind of complacency existed to feel satisfied with a C, and to consider greater effort for the sake of higher passing marks as a waste of time. Such pupils openly advocate a greater number of subjects with at least a minimum passing mark in each, in preference to fewer subjects and the higher grades, which they claim count no more in essential credit than a lower passing grade. That attitude may account for some of the low marks as well as for some of the failures shown above, even though the pupils may possess an abundance of mental ability.
Still another element, apart from the real ability of the pupils, which is contributory to school failures is found in punitive marking or in the giving of a failing grade for disciplinary effect. It is probably a relatively small element, but it is difficult to establish any certain estimate of its amount. Numerous teachers are ready to assert its reality in practice. Two cases came directly to the author's personal attention by mere chance--one, by the frank statement of a teacher who had used this weapon; another, by the ready advice of an older to a younger teacher, in the midst of recording marks, to fail a boy "because he was too fresh." The advice was followed. Such a practice, however prevalent, is intolerable and indefensible. If the school failure is to be administered as a retaliation or convenience by the teacher, how is the moral or educational welfare of the pupil to be served thereby? It is certain to be more efficacious for vengeance than for purposes of reforming the individual if employed in this way. The Regents' rules take recognition of this inclination toward a perversion of the function of examination by forbidding any exclusion from Regents' examinations as a means of discipline. Many teachers cultivate a finesse for discerning weaknesses and faults, without perceiving the immeasurable advantage of being able to see the pupils' excellences. In one school there was employed a plan by which a percentage discount was charged for absence, and in some instances it reduced a passing mark to a failing mark. This comes close to the assignment of marks of failure for penalizing purposes, which is unjustified and vicious.
It is certain that some of the pupils are failures only in the narrow academic sense. Information in reference to a few such cases was volunteered by principals, without any effort being made to trace such pupils in general. One of the pupils in this study who had graduated after failing 23 times, was able to enter a reputable college, and had reached the junior year at the time of this study. Two others with a record of more than 20 failures each had made a decided success in business--one as an automobile salesman and manager, the other in a telegraph office. It is not unrecognized that the school has many notable failures to indicate how even the fittest sometimes do not survive the school routine. Among such cases were Darwin, Beecher, Seward, Pasteur, Linnaeus, Webster, Edison, and George Eliot, who were classed by their schools as stupid or incompetent.[51] In reference to the pupil's responsibility for the failures, Thorndike remarks[52] that "something in the mental or social and economic status of the pupil who enters high school, or in the particular kind of education given in the United States, is at fault. The fact that the elimination is so great in the first year of the high school gives evidence that a large share of the fault lies with the kind of education given in the United States." Some of the facts for those are not eliminated so early are still more definitely indicative that something is wrong with the kind of education given, as the facts of the following section seem to point out.
3. THE SCHOOL EMPHASIS AND THE SCHOOL FAILURES ARE BOTH CULMINATIVE IN PARTICULAR SCHOOL SUBJECTS
As soon as we find any subject forced upon all pupils alike as a school requirement we may be quite sure that it will not meet the demands of the individual aptitudes and capacities of some portion of those pupils. As a result an accumulation of failures will tend to mark out such a uniformly required subject, whether it be mathematics, science or Latin. It was pointed out in section 4 of Chapter II that Latin and mathematics, although admittedly in charge of teachers ranking with the best, have both a high percentage of the total failures and the highest percentage of failures reckoned on the number taking the subject. In both regards there is a heaping up of failures for those two subjects, but furthermore there is an arbitrary emphasis culminating in these two subjects beyond any others excepting that English is a very generally required subject. In reference to these two required subjects the pupils who graduate are not more successful than those who do not. When the emphasis is on the teaching of the subject rather than on the teaching of the pupil there is no incongruity in making the subject a requirement for all, but both are incongruous with what psychology has more lately recognized and pointed out as to the wide range of individual differences. A similar situation is evidenced by the percentage of failure in science as reported for the St. Louis high school in Chapter II. A year of physics had been made compulsory for all, and taught in the second year.[53] Its percentage of failures accordingly mounts to the highest place. Mr. Meredith, who conducted that portion of the survey, rightly regards the policy as a mistake, and recommends that the needs of individual pupils be considered.
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 analysis 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 illustrations 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 class 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 assumptions, 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 classes 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 passing, 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 assignments 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.