ÀҾ˹éÒ˹ѧÊ×Í
PDF
ePub
[graphic][graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

support to the Crusade for Freedom, a national cam

paign to give tangible demonstration to all peoples of the world that we in the United States firmly believe in and will work for freedom and peace.

Endorsed by Educators

General Lucius D. Clay, military governor for Germany during the Berlin airlift, recently agreed to become national chairman of the Crusade for Freedom. (National Headquarters, 350 Fifth Avenue, New York 1, N. Y.) Many educators have endorsed the current campaign and are actively participating in it.

Signatures Enshrined

During the month of October the Crusade for Freedom will give millions of men, women and children opportunity to sign Freedom Scrolls. Names on these Freedom Scrolls will be recognized as personal declarations of belief in world freedom and peace. The scrolls will be given wide circula

tion across the Nation. They will be permanently enshrined in the base of a 10-ton Freedom Bell, 8 feet high, that has been especially cast.

On United Nations Day

To be dedicated in Berlin on United Nations Day, October 24, the Freedom Bell, symbol of the Crusade for Freedom, will ring out in tribute to those giving their lives in today's struggle for human freedom. It is planned that simultaneously church, school, and community bells will resound throughout the United States and many nations of Western Europe in symbolic dedication to the cause of freedom for all mankind.

From the President

Through the Crusade for Freedom it is hoped that there will be launched a major international offensive for freedom and peace.

President Truman has said, ". . . I hope that all Americans will join . . . in dedicating themselves to this critical struggle for men's minds . . ." I am sure that American education will do its full part in this great crusade to "make freedom ring."

Еле
Ease Juskeith

U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION

World Understanding in Elementary Schools

by Wilhelmina Hill, Specialist for Social Science, Division of Elementary and Secondary Schools

S

CHOOLS OF TODAY must devote their energies toward world understanding and cooperation as never before. The world situation with its misunderstandings, barriers to communication, technology, aviation, and new destructive weapons makes this imperative.

Herold C. Hunt, Chicago's Superintendent of Schools, says, "The ability to get along with people is the characteristic that merits greatest emphasis in all teaching today. With the shrinking of space which has been brought about by modern science and the consequent state in which we find ourselves of 'being neighbor to the world,' it becomes necessary to enlarge our horizon to include world understanding in our efforts to develop this ability to get along with people. It is an old adage which reminds us that we never knew a person we didn't like and, since we know that we get along with the people we like, we must include that concept of global understanding that peace may be maintained throughout the world."

What is the role of the elementary school in this undertaking? Can children of primary and intermediate grades approach the problem of world understanding?

The answers lie in the maturity levels and needs of the children themselves. They can begin to learn cooperative ways of getting along with others from their first experiences at home and school. Effective skills in human relationships begin with the young and should develop as individuals broaden their scope of living.

The kind of experiences in human relationships that children have daily in school, home, and community provide the opportunities through which they may become cooperative individuals on a much broader scale. A democratic permissive atmosphere in which pupils and teacher plan, work, and evaluate their learning enterprises together is essential to this social development of individuals. It is a characteristic of many modern elementary schools. It should be evident in all.

Children of elementary grades can learn many things about the people of the world. Their environment today often contains many elements which make such a study natural and within the scope of the children's interests and concerns. Food, toys, newspapers, radio, television, foreign visitors, returned travelers, relatives, letters, international exchanges, music, dance, stories, and art are some of the media by which children have foreign contacts in their own lives.

Throughout elementary grades, the pupils show considerable interest in other children regardless of where they live. Sometimes they are not as interested in the adult affairs of a foreign country or region as their teachers or textbook writers might think desirable. Perhaps we should take a clue from this, and make further effort to relate subject matter about peoples and countries more closely to children's real interests and

are

concerns. If elementary children studying about food, they are likely to be interested in and learn about the food they themselves eat and about the food children and adults eat in other lands. But the children must not be left out so that boys and girls make just a study of people only.

Elementary social studies curricula offer numerous opportunities for teaching about the peoples of the world. In one west coast school system each third grade studies one nationality group which has representatives in the culture pattern of its city. Hence in one school, the children may learn about people of Italian and in another about those of Swedish birth or ancestry.

Many fourth-grade courses suggest studies of communities or regions in various parts of the United States or abroad. A good many sixth-grade programs provide for the study of the people of the Americas and others of people who live in various

[graphic]

Denver, Colo., school children use both small and large globes to study world geography. Photograph courtesy Denver Public Schools.

parts of the Eastern Hemisphere. Often seventh graders study peoples of the world with emphasis on either the geography or history of their regions or on both. In those systems where the curriculum doesn't include regional studies in elementary grades, there is a real opportunity for teaching such topics or units as aviation, radio, or housing from a world point of view, beginning with the local and then widening horizons as far as the children are able

to go.

It is evident then that the elementary curriculum offers excellent possibilities for developing world understanding. The question now arises, How may such learning be made meaningful and realistic?

The experience approach should be used whenever possible and appropriate. Children learn what they experience; they learn that which they accept. Direct experiences in the area of world understanding are possible in 1950. Modern "know-how" in communication, transportation, international exchanges, and teaching techniques has made this possible.

Children can learn skills in human relationships and cooperative ways of living together in school and community. They can engage in international exchanges of letters. albums, records, and art. Many can have the privilege of meeting a visitor or traveler from a foreign land or some person in the community who has come from another country. All can have frequent contact with other peoples through newspapers, magazines, books, films, radio, or television.

Some of these experiences may come about in connection with social studies units. Others will be just a part of the daily living in the school. Some will have to do with music and dance, and others with literature and creative drama.

By no means should reading and study be neglected in such an experience approach. But the study will take on greater meaning because it is related to living, to the child's social environment.

A plea is in order here for more accurate and realistic reading and pictorial materials concerning the world's people. It is hoped that persons who select such materials will try to obtain those which show how people live in other parts of the world today rather than how they lived 10 or 20 years before the last World War. Foreign visitors are often amazed to see how the life of their countries is pictured in some of our reading materials. An example is the

stereotype Chinese child with the pigtail. We seem to have gotten somewhat past the Dutch wooden shoes hurdle, but many of the things written about Asia and other areas are equally out of date.

One school superintendent, Evan Evans of Winfield, Kans., was a member of the European Flying Classroom last spring. Prior to the trip, he was invited to visit elementary classes in his system and tell the mentary classes in his system and tell the children about the places he expected to go. The children became interested and began to make plans to "go along." They fol lowed his itinerary closely on maps of Europe.

SUGGESTIONS for teachers, supervisors, principals, and others involved in curriculum development may be found in World Understanding Begins With Children, Office of Education Bulletin 1949 No. 17, by Delia Goetz, Division of International Educational Relations. Copies are available from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C., price 15 cents.

Another useful publication is The Unesco Story, "a resource and action booklet for organizations and communities." Address your request for this 112-page report to The U. S. National Commission for UNESCO, attention UNESCO Relations Staff, Department of State, Washington 25, D. C.

From each of the 11 countries visited, the superintendent sent post cards, a piece of money, a few postage stamps, and when possible, maps and other materials related to the geography of the country. A real interest developed on the part of the stu dents, who wondered when the next mail would come and checked to see how long it took the air-mail post cards to arrive after being mailed. It was generally conceded by the teachers and by the parents that there

had been a greater interest in the study of European geography than there had been for many years. Distances became more real, and economic and social conditions were better understood.

What can be done about teaching elementary school children about organizations for international cooperation? A great deal is being done through participation in the various exchanges of the Junior Red Cross. Less is being accomplished with regard to United Nations and its specialized agencies, such as UNESCO and FAO. The New York City, St. Paul, Minn.,

and Bay City, Mich., public schools have issued excellent bulletins on ways in which United Nations and its various branches may be included in the curriculum at the various elementary levels.

Some children's organizations, as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, have clubs and members in other countries. These offer opportunities for children to participate directly in the programs of international organizations.

Pearl Wanamaker, President, National Council of Chief State School Officers and Washington's State Superintendent of Public Instruction, emphasizes that, “The future of free men rests largely with the United States.

year

"If our millions of American public school children are to be taught the techniques and the responsibilities of democratic action, this instruction must be part of the school program every day of every school for child. Stress must be every placed upon our basic institutions as those agencies which function for the good of all people, and in which both children and adults share. School administrators and teachers, working with parents and community leaders, must inventory existing organizations for local, State, national, and international cooperation, and then provide boys and girls with direct opportunity to share in these programs.

"There is no substitute for democratic action. Through our groups working together for the betterment of mankind, we can give to our school children the opportunity to learn firsthand the rights and privileges of a devoted, dynamic national and world citizenship.

"In Washington State many elementary schools teach specific units on the UN and UNESCO. Units include elementary research, committee and class discussions, impersonations and dramatizations pertaining to the UN structure, functions, and agencies. Outgrowing pupil projects, such as sending friendship letters, making flags of UN nations, keeping scrapbooks of UNESCO stories, and affiliating with elementary schools abroad are frequent."

Because of the urgency for improving world relations in this school year of 195051, the development of world understanding should rank high on the priority list of those responsible for developing school programs. Let each of us face the question. "What is our school system doing about world understanding in the elementary schools?

New Evaluative Instruments for Secondary Schools

by Carl A. Jessen, Chief

School Organization and Supervision

'HE 1950 edition of the Evaluative Cri

TH

teria is off the press following intensive work for 212 years on its development. Like its forerunner printed in 1940, it is a product of the Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards and is distributed through the American Council on Education.

The Cooperative Study was organized in 1933 by the regional agencies of secondary schools and colleges operating in New England, Middle States, Southern, North Central, Northwestern, and Western sections of the United States. These regional associations selected representatives from among their memberships and these representatives acting as a body became the General Committee responsible for the Cooperative Study.

The Committee secured funds from the parent associations and from the General Education Board, employed a research staff, and after 6 years of research and experiment produced instruments for the evaluation of schools which were published in 1940. The three publications most essential for school evaluations were a manual entitled How To Evaluate a Secondary School, the Evaluative Criteria, and Educational Temperatures, a set of forms for reporting graphically the results of evaluations.

Why a Revision

It was realized at the time that the instruments thus produced would probably need to be revised, partly because of new developments in education, partly because, even with the try-out which had been conducted in 200 schools before publication, further use of the evaluative instruments would be likely to reveal ways in which they and procedures for their application could be improved. Against the possibility that such a revision would need to be undertaken, the Cooperative Study through the years after 1940 assembled reactions from the most im

portant users of the criteria, namely, schools that had been evaluated, persons who had been members of several visiting committees, and others who in various ways had both extensive and intensive experience with the evaluative instruments.

As the reports came in from these sources it was apparent that those who were using the instruments were enthusiastic about their value as devices for stimulation and improvement. Also these respondents found and reported items in the materials and features in the recommended procedures which in their judgment could be improved.

By the end of the war and the years immediately following, enough of these reports had come in to convince the Committee that a revision ought to be undertaken. Accordingly plans were laid and carried out for a revision and for funds with which to make it. Toward the end of 1947 the funds available in the Cooperative Study treasury plus substantial grants from the regional associations and the General Education Board made it possible to get under way. Full-scale and full-time work on the revision started in 1948 with the employ ment of a research staff and the opening of a revision office in Boston, Mass.

Characteristics of the Revised
Evaluative Criteria

The revision resulting in the 1950 edition combines the essentials of the three publications of 1940 into the one volume of Evaluative Criteria. The new publication is somewhat shorter than the three earlier publications it displaces, despite the substantial expansions which have been made in certain sections of it.

The Committee in charge decided early in its deliberations that it wanted a thoroughly creative revision. The revision was not to be a tinkering job. The Committee also was entirely clear and vocal on another related subject: It did not want any of the

materials or procedures discarded except for good cause. Those features which had proved their worth through 10 years of experience with them were to be retained, in improved form to be sure, but retained in their essentials.

Thus one finds that the 1950 edition parallels in its sections many of the sections of the earlier edition. The plan of having a statement of Guiding Principles in each major section is followed in the new edition, as is the practice of having both checklist and evaluational items in the several sections. The arrangements by which schools. during 10 years of evaluations have been encouraged to insert comments and statements descriptive of their purposes and practices are expanded in the new Evaluative Criteria. Retained also is the plan of having extensive self-evaluation by the local school faculty precede evaluation by a visiting committee.

Objectives and Curriculum

Major changes have been introduced in the techniques for ascertaining what are the objectives aimed at by a school. Experi

ence with Section B of the 1940 Evaluative Criteria revealed that the emphasis was too strong on educational philosophy. Local school authorities and teachers too often were led to think about statements which had been developed by committees and agencies rather than about the needs of the pupils enrolled in their school. It is believed that the present section focusing attention upon what is needed by the pupils is likely to yield more valid statements of what a given school is attempting to do. Moreover, there is opportunity in the new section for schools to indicate, not only what they are attempting to achieve, but how far they have progressed toward its achievement.

The sections dealing with the educational program have been greatly expanded. In

the 1940 edition this subject was treated mainly in four sections, namely, Curriculum and Courses of Study, Pupil Activity Program, Instruction, and Outcomes of the Educational Program. In the revised Evaluative Criteria the section on the Pupil Activity Program is retained but with considerable change in the check list and evaluation items. The other 3 sections, however, have been substantially reorganized into 17 sections, 1 on the general program of studies, 1 on the core program, and the other 15 on subject areas (English, mathematics, home economics, etc.) commonly found in secondary schools.

It is not expected that every secondary school will have all of these subject areas represented in its offerings, but will confine its evaluation to those which are present. Although variety rather than uniformity is apparent in the approach to these various subject areas there is a certain amount of unity in them in that each conforms to a sixpoint outline involving organization, nature

of offerings, physical facilities, direction of learning, outcomes, and special characteristics.

Staff

Section I in the revised Evaluative Criteria combines information which in the 1940 edition was gathered in two sections, one on school staff, the other on school administration. In the process there has also been transferred to Section I some of the data on individual staff members formerly assembled through the "M Blank." The new Section J, Data for Individual Staff Members, which takes the place of the former Section M, is considerably changed. In fact, both the coverage and the plan for securing data on teaching and administrative staff, it is felt, are improved markedly in the revised edition.

Reporting Results

No part of the evaluative instruments has undergone more drastic revision than the

The Cooperative Study Committee and Staff

Representatives of Regional Associations of Colleges and Secondary Schools

New England Association

JESSE B. DAVIS, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

RAYMOND A. GREEN, Newton High School and Junior College, Newtonville, Mass. CARL A. MAGNUSON, Bristol High School, Bristol, Conn.

Middle States Association

H. A. FERGUSON, Montclair High School, Montclair, N. J.

E. D. GRIZZELL, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., chairman of the Administrative Committee.

EARLE T. HAWKINS, Maryland State Teachers College, Towson, Md.

KARL G. MILLER, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

C. C. TILLINGHAST, Horace Mann School for Boys, New York, N. Y.

Southern Association

ROBERT B. CLEM, Shawnee High School, Louisville, Ky.

J. H. HIGHSMITH, State Department of Public Instruction, Raleigh, N. C. JOSEPH ROEMER, on staff of U. S. High Commissioner for Germany (formerly with George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn.; until February 1949 chairman of Administrative Committee).

W. R. SMITHEY, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

C. R. WILCOX, Darlington School, Rome, Ga.

North Central Association

G. E. CARROTHERS, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., chairman of the General Committee.

C. G. F. FRANZEN, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.

H. C. MARDIS, Lincoln High School, Lincoln, Nebr.

W. E. MCVEY, De Paul University, Chicago, Ill.

M. R. OWENS, State Department of Education, Little Rock, Ark.

Northwest Association DONALD A. EMERSON, State Department of Public Instruction, Salem, Oreg.

F. L. STETSON, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oreg.

[blocks in formation]

method of reporting results. Gone are the "thermometers" and the conversion tables. Gone are the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Scales. Gone are the percentile scales and the norms of every description.

Retained is the idea of a statistical summary and a graphic summary, respectively Sections X and Y in the 1950 edition. The graphic summaries in Section Y are horizontal bar graphs. Since the number of evaluations has been more than doubled (from 450 to 932) in the revised Evaluative Criteria it follows that Section X and Section Y must be in accord with the changes. in evaluations. The simplification which has taken place in them, however, make them much easier to prepare and interpret.

The Manual

The reduced complexity in statistical and graphic summaries results in a reduced need for explanation in the manual which now is Section A of the new Evaluative Criteria. Both on this account and because of the 10 years of experience with evaluations it now becomes possible to produce a much more. satisfactory statement supplying suggestions on how to proceed with self-evaluation, committee evaluation, and follow-up after evaluation. This is the nature and strength of the new Section A, Manual.

The Contents

The new Evaluative Criteria were tried out in 19 schools and were examined critically by the members of the Cooperative Study Committee before being cast into final form for printing. They are being offered now with a great deal of confidence that they are much more valid, much more usable, and in general much improved over the evaluative instruments which the Cooperative Study produced and offered to schools 10 years ago. Those instruments were used year after year with satisfaction in thousands of evaluations throughout the Nation. Because of experience gained from those evaluations it is believed that the present instruments are better than the earlier ones. The contents of Evaluative Criteria, 1950 edition, are as follows:

[blocks in formation]
« ¡è͹˹éÒ´Óà¹Ô¹¡ÒõèÍ
 »