The Lock-Step of the Public Schools

THE usual system of grading pupils in the public schools and of promoting them from one class to another is mediæval; for although the American graded school was not transplanted from the Old World, in its methods of grading and promotion it differs but little from the first school of the kind, founded by Sturm at Strasburg. In spite of the progress that has been made in other ways, it is almost as rigid as its prototype of three hundred and sixty years ago. In the ungraded school, so far as possible, the instruction has been suited to the individual. This adaptability to individual teaching is its strong feature, and it must be acknowledged that for the favored few it has a manifest advantage. Although the graded school yields the greatest good to the greatest number in the least time, at the least expense, it does not often provide properly for the individual differences of the pupils ; it is not sufficiently flexible to accommodate itself to them, but it demands that they accommodate themselves to it: therefore, the usual method of grading, which was intended to serve the children, has become their cruel master. It keeps all the pupils in an intellectual lock-step, month after month, year after year, for their whole school lives.

The course of study is usually divided arbitrarily into a number of grades, generally a year apart, and the work for each grade is laid out for either bright, slow, or average pupils. Many schools are graded for the bright pupils, and all the rest, dragged over far more work than they can understand, become discouraged and drop out of school. Many more schools are graded for the slower ones, with manifest injustice to those who could go forward more rapidly ; and not only is the progress of all kept to the pace of the slow, but habits of indolence and inattention are acquired by the alert, who are thus injured both mentally and morally. By far the largest number of schools, however, are supposed to be graded for the average pupils. At first sight this system seems reasonable ; but the truth is that, neglecting the individual pupil of flesh and blood and soul and life and infinite possibilities, most of us have attempted to reach all the pupils by shaping the work to the mythical average pupil. Then, at a season when the sun has reached a certain altitude in the heavens, and the thermometer registers ninety - five degrees, and the pupils’ energy is low, we subject all to a useless examination, which the lucky ones pass, while the rest lose a year or leave school. Thus in chain-gangs are the bright and the slow bound and forced to move at the same pace. Yet many wonder why eighty per cent of the pupils finish only four years of a twelve years’ course; why but two per cent are graduated ; and, worse than all, why the graduates do not illustrate the law of the survival of the fittest.

Another serious weakness in the present system is that even the brightest cannot gain time, and if any except the brightest are absent for but a short period, they are unable to pass to advanced work, and therefore lose a whole year when they may be only a month or two behind. Less than one per cent of the pupils of the public schools can successfully skip the work of a whole year. About thirty-five per cent fail to be promoted. Some claim that those who fail do better work the following year, but statistics that I have collected show that the large majority of the pupils do not return, and few of those who do return do good work. In a vague way, everybody knows that there is an amazing loss of pupils’ time, yet none but those who have studied the matter carefully can know how great the loss is. Statistics, gathered with much labor and care, show that eighty per cent lose from one to four years. For every one hundred pupils in the schools that I myself examined, there had been from one hundred and twentyfive to three hundred and seventy years lost during their course of study. Such loss is inevitable whenever the teacher is forced to forget that the class is composed of fifty individuals, and to think only of the fact that all must reach a certain place by a given time. It is not too much to say that on all sides interested parents and thoughtful educators are dissatisfied with the usual system, which cuts short the school period of the majority, and menaces the intellectual life of every boy and girl in the graded schools.

For several years I sought diligently. but unsuccessfully, for some better method. By letters of inquiry, by examining courses of study, and by visits to fifty different cities, I procured information concerning the needs and conditions in more than two hundred cities in different parts of the United States, in the hope that I should find a plan which was satisfactory. While all thoughtful teachers felt the need of some reform in the manner of grading, practical methods for correcting the evil had not appeared. Nearly all agreed that grading for annual promotion was a failure. Some had tried semi-annual promotion, but the results showed this plan little, if any, more pliant. Others had set apart an ungraded room in every building, but they found that by this device they reached only a very small part of the pupils. A few others, despairing of anything better, had returned to the system of the ungraded school, only to learn that with so many classes good results could not be secured.

At last I worked out, and put into operation in three different cities, under varying and unfavorable conditions, a plan of grading and promoting pupils which adapts the training to the individual. It is not necessary to explain the many devices which some years’ experience has evolved, but it may be of interest to mention the most important methods and results. The plan has now stood the test of several years’ trial, and has proved to be very satisfactory. Although its main features were worked out ten years ago, while I had charge of a school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it was further developed in the schools of New Castle, Pennsylvania, whither I went as superintendent for the single purpose of proving that it was possible to carry out a more pliable method of grading than any I had been able to find. It is now in operation in tlie city of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The promotion examination has been abolished, and its abandonment is a necessary first step to any more pliant plan of grading; for the making of the timelimit the same for all pupils is the very basis of the disastrous “uniformity” in school work. This uniform time-limit came with Sturm’s iron-clad system, and even now it is the greatest obstacle to a more flexible arrangement. So long as it remains, so long will the serious complaint that “ the graded school machinery requires uniformity in every child” be well founded. It is encouraging that from all sides there come unmistakable indications of a strong reaction against the promotion examination. Although the teaching test is a necessary part of all true teaching, yet those who have considered the promotion test from the standpoint of the pupil, or of the parent, or of the teacher have been led unhesitatingly to condemn the test used to determine promotion. The attempt to cure the evil of wrong grading without entirely cutting off the promotion examination is as senseless as trying to cure any other malady without striking at its root. Few cities now dare cling to the promotion test as they once did. In many it is a small factor in deciding on promotion. The results show that though lessening the importance of the promotion examination may have lessened the strain on the pupils, the hope that its abolition would mitigate the acknowledged evil in grading was unfounded. Yet, strange to relate, some who claim to have an “ ideal system of grading” still hold to the final examination, and in reality have what all authorities condemn as a “ Procrustean bed of grades.”

The promotion examination is a test of memory rather than of power. It may show some things that the pupil does not know, but it cannot show what the pupil does know; it destroys or prevents broad and intelligent teaching, makes of the teacher a grind, and turns out pupils by machinery. It forces pupils to go over far more work than they can grasp or understand, and it causes many to leave school. It brings senseless worry to the nervous, who often fail to pass, while the less worthy succeed. It is, moreover, a great temptation to deceit. It demands one third more time than is necessary to impart the same knowledge and to give better training. It puts a premium, not upon the work done day by day during the year, but upon the amount of “ stuffing ” that can be done at the end of the term. These are a few of the many reasons why it has been condemned as a moral injustice to pupils and teachers, and as one of the greatest of educational blunders.

The promotion examination having been abandoned, the teacher’s estimate of the pupil’s ability to do advanced work settles his promotion. As the teacher’s estimate is shown on the report, the pupil and his parents with him know monthly what progress he is making towards advanced work. In the primary grades the teacher’s judgment determines the record, and in the higher grades the teacher’s judgment is corrected by written recitations and tests. This method puts a premium on the daily work, and affords a moderate but continuous stimulus rather than an excessive and a spasmodic one. Tests given by the principal and the superintendent show the proper completion of work, and are useful to direct and broaden the instruction, but have nothing to do with promotion. Pupils promoted prematurely are returned whence they came, and teachers become more careful thereafter.

It may be said that the teaching test is only another name for the promotion examination, but a moment’s thought will show that there is a great difference between the two. One is a careful diagnosis at frequent intervals for the purpose of discovering the disease in its incipiency, in order to apply the proper remedies and to save the patient. The other is a blundering post-mortem to learn the cause of death. Common sense and experience unite in declaring that every efficient teacher knows which pupils are ready for advanced work better than a superintendent can know. All who have had experience with this method of promotion agree that never before were promotions made so satisfactorily, and never before did the teachers study individuals so closely.

A distinguishing feature of this plan is that in essential studies the pupils of every grade or class are subdivided, according to ability and acquirements, into several small classes. The number of divisions in a grade varies with the number of rooms of the same grade in the building, with the importance of the subject, with the efficiency of the teacher, and with other limiting conditions. The number of divisions in each subject is also determined by these conditions, after a careful consideration of the subjects in each grade, and by the results of an analysis of the records of ten thousand children of different grades. This study of the pupils’ records shows that in almost every case the difficulty that they encounter arises at certain points in each grade, so that by providing for individual instruction at these danger-points all cause of failure is removed. Likewise, the number of pupils in each division varies with limiting conditions. The larger the number of pupils to select from, the greater the number that can go together without injury. The more nearly uniform the pupils of a class are in ability and attainments, the better can the instruction be suited to their needs, the greater is the power of emulation, the larger is the number that can successfully be taught together, the easier it is to hold the attention and concentrate it upon the subject presented, and therefore the better is the training given. No matter how closely we grade, it is found that there is always sufficient difference in the pupils of each group to give that quickening influence which is such an important result of class teaching.

The accurate grading of pupils into classes of from eight to twenty, instead of roughly herding them in classes of from forty to sixty, furnishes a practical method of reaching the individual, and thus makes possible the mental growth that is dependent upon constant, healthy, beneficial activity. It not only secures from each his best work, but it prevents overwork on the part of the nervous pupils, and on the part of others who, for any reason, should not have severe mental labor.

It has not been found necessary to divide the grades into small classes except in the essential branches, which vary somewhat with the courses of study and are different in the several grades. The number of recitations is not greater than is usual in those schools which have more than one grade to the room. Take, for example, a grade where there are six studies. Since many schools have pupils of two different grades in each room, twelve daily recitations are required. In those schools which have three grades in each room, provision has to be made for at least eighteen recitations. Under the new plan of grading, three or four divisions are made in each of the two most important subjects, and two divisions in the next most important subject. As the pupils in each room are nearly equal in acquirements, it has proved very satisfactory to have them recite together in the other, the less important branches, in which it is easy to hold the attention, and in which future work is not so dependent upon what has been learned. Thus by providing for but twelve or fifteen daily recitations the desired end is reached. Since most public school buildings have from two to four rooms of the same grade, it is easy to have, not three or four, but ten or twelve divisions in the essential subjects of each grade. Under such conditions, there could be in the usual eight grades from seventy to eighty divisions below the high school, instead of the eight large classes which the usual plan requires. But experience has proved that a much smaller number than seventy or eighty meets all the requirements. New divisions are made by the teacher when they are necessary properly to accommodate the pupils in her room, and they are not continued longer than they are beneficial. Instead of making the pupils fit the grades, the purpose is to make the divisions suit the needs of the pupils. As the divisions are quite small, better results can be obtained with shorter recitations, and time is saved for individual work at those points where the study of the pupil’s record shows that individual work is most needed. The records that I have gathered in Elizabeth, New Jersey, show that in one grade ninety-two per cent of the failures were in arithmetic and grammar. By providing for small classes and individual work in these subjects the cause of failure was removed, and but few pupils were kept back. While the apparent increase in the number of recitations led teachers to look with disfavor on the plan before they understood it, at the end of the first year’s experience with it they not only favored it, but ninety-four per cent of them have written their reasons for preferring it to any other plan of which they have knowledge.

Since all pupils are placed in divisions with those of the same ability, the instruction can be carefully adjusted to the needs of each. That the instruction should be accurately adjusted, both in matter and in method, to the ability and attainments of the individual pupil is a pedagogical axiom. Yet everybody knows that it is violated daily in almost every school in the land ; for, as schools are graded, the extremes of the class are so far apart that the individual does not receive accurately adjusted instruction. The most careless observer of children knows that they naturally love to learn what is new, and are always interested in doing what they can do with reasonable ease. When suitable work is assigned to them the tendency to idleness is greatly lessened, and many a listless “ time-killer ” is transformed into an earnest worker ; the necessity of punishment is greatly diminished in all classes, and has entirely disappeared from many. Indeed, the new plan of grading has practically solved the problem of the bad boy, and has proved that the majority of the so-called bad boys are the logical result of a bad method. The bright boys are not kept busy under the usual plan ; therefore they are the ones who get into mischief, for the idle brain is still the devil’s workshop.

Another all - important feature peculiar to this method of grading is that no fixed amount of work is demanded of any division within a given time. Every division goes as fast as it can do thorough work, and no faster. The greatest mistake of the usual plan is that, though there can be no uniformity of conditions, uniformity of results is demanded of all. The teachers are now no longer compelled to drive their pupils through a course of study. Courses of study we must have, and perhaps it is even necessary to give all pupils the same drill in grammar, the same exercise in arithmetic, and the same number of miles of writing to do. But no effort is now made to give all the same amount in the same time, regardless of the differences between them. While, under this system of grading, pupils are required to do thoroughly all the essential work before passing to advanced work, pupils and teachers know that they are not expected to finish it in a shorter time than is required to do it satisfactorily. The consequent relief to the teacher is as great as the benefit to the pupil. Many a faithful teacher endures a terrible strain for years, lest she be blamed if all her pupils do not finish the given course in a fixed time. One teacher expressed a common sentiment when she said : " It seemed as if this new plan had raised from my shoulders a terrible load which threatened to crush me. I knew that it was an outrage to drive some of the pupils as I was obliged to drive them, but what was I to do ? I was told that by June all had to be ready for the examinations. Now my task is a very much more pleasant and satisfactory one. I am no longer forced to be a pupil-driver, but I can be a teacher in the true sense of the word; and school is, to pupils and to teacher, an entirely different sort of place.” It is time that blame for many failures he taken from teachers and principals, and placed on the shoulders of those who are responsible for the system. Let them bear this great responsibility.

Instead of waiting till all are ready, and then moving forward by battalions, pupils are promoted whenever they are prepared. A pupil’s promotion is determined, not by the lapse of time, but by his ability and preparation to do advanced work. While there are still general promotions to higher grades at the end of the year, each division goes forward just as far as it can, and at the beginning of the next year pupils take up the work where they left off. The majority of the irregular promotions are made at the end of each month, but no pupil need remain where he is one day after he has demonstrated his ability to do work in advance of his division. The classification is so accurate that the changes from division to division are not so frequent as to affect the stability of the division.

Although most superintendents favor the promotion, at any time, of a pupil who is prepared to be put forward, yet all know very well that, under the usual plan of grading, it is practically impossible to advance such a student. Even the best pupil, who can keep up with his class by attending two days a week, cannot successfully skip the work of six months or a year. Statistics prove that the majority of those who seem to do so lose more time later.

An important feature of the new plan of grading is the keeping of a complete record of every pupil. This record is given to the new teacher whenever a pupil is promoted. The record shows clearly the exact amount and character of the work done by each child in every subject. It shows also all that the previous teachers and principals have been able to learn concerning the children’s mental, moral, and physical defects; all they know of their likes and dislikes ; all that has been found out concerning their home life and social environment; and everything else that may have a bearing on the character of the work which may reasonably be expected from each, or that may be of use in properly understanding the individual characteristics. Thus each teacher has the accumulated experience of other teachers. Ten minutes’ study of a pupil’s past record, if it has been made and kept accurately, gives more valuable information than many a teacher gets in months by her own observation. Surely it is time to act on the principle that it is necessary to know an individual before you try to instruct or to govern him. Only thus can the teacher find that ever present but often hidden germ of character, which, when found and brought into contact with the warm nature of the earnest, sympathetic teacher and principal, is so developed that it transforms the lazy, listless school “ terror ” into an obedient, thoughtful pupil.

One very important result is the more thorough work done by pupils in essential branches. As no teacher is expected to take the pupils of any division faster than they should go, it is not found difficult for the teachers to secure the thoroughness required. Every teacher knows that, under the usual plan, a great many who are promoted to advanced work have not mastered what they have passed over. Under this new plan, all other requirements are secondary to thoroughness in essentials, and no pupil is allowed to move forward until he is so well grounded in the work gone over that he is thoroughly prepared for advanced work. Much has been done to clear up the old mystery why pupils went to school so many years and knew so little when they stopped.

Another important result is this : since the pupils are divided into small divisions and work as individuals, child study becomes not only practicable, but necessary. There are times when the teacher comes into close contact with every pupil. Otherwise there cannot be proper mental growth. By the study of the individual child’s needs and the separate ministering to those needs, and only in this way, can the true teacher come into life-giving contact with the weaker mind of the child, for restraint, guidance, and development. Only thus can the teacher properly influence the pupil, warm into life his dormant powers, and stimulate the neglected capacities into healthy and well proportioned growth.

When the brighter pupils from a lower class enter a higher class they are at a slight disadvantage ; therefore, those members of the higher class who have not before shown great ambition are stirred up to excel the newcomers and to advance with them. Such an effect upon this kind of pupils, though unforeseen, has been to me one of the most gratifying results of the plan, and has repaid me for the many hours spent in the study of this problem and the many conflicts with those wedded to the old method. The slower pupils, under the old classification, not only lose the confidence of parents, teachers, and friends, but, worse than all, they lose confidence in themselves. When the lazy ones find that they are likely to be left behind even by the plodders, it is inspiring to see them take on a new life and show what they can do if they make up their minds to work. Indeed, most pupils, when a chance for promotion is constantly within reach, are inspired with enthusiasm. If promotion to a higher grade does not depend upon the time of year, nor upon the ability of all in the school to advance at a certain pace, nor upon the result of an examination, but upon the work that the individual pupil does day by day, a new sort of stimulus is given to the whole school. One teacher testifies : “ I should not have believed it possible there could be such a change in the spirit of all.” Another says : “ Even the ‘ dummies ’ are surprising their best friends, and proving that they were not dull, but that their only trouble was that they were dragged too rapidly forward. All they needed was a chance to work where they were prepared to work. Who can estimate how many so - called ‘ dummies ’ have been forced out of school and had life’s prospects blighted ? ” Such expressions are heard almost daily from teachers who at first were opposed to this method of grading.

The plan makes possible frequent reclassification, and frequent reclassification is the only means of preventing the sacrifice of the pupils to the mere machinery of the school. In a school, as in every other living organism, many forces are at work to produce disorganization, and constant reorganization is necessary to preserve the health of the organism. Such pupils as fall behind need not lose a whole year, but only a part of it, and because of the ease of reclassification this may soon be regained. In spite of limiting conditions, more than forty per cent of the pupils in the schools where the plan has been tried were reclassified during the first eight months ; that is to say, when the pupils had been classified according to their acquirements and their ability, it was found that forty per cent had been put into other divisions where they could work to better advantage,— classified as they could not have been under the old method.

Since in the essential studies there are many divisions a short distance apart, instead of eight divisions a year apart, it is possible to “sift the pupils up” instead of always “sifting them down.” Except for absence, few of the slow are put back, but the brighter pupils are frequently promoted.

There has been a great increase in the number of pupils in the grammar schools and the high school in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In fact, the present graduating class of our high school is a hundred per cent greater than the largest class that ever graduated. Many pupils remain in school longer than they would have remained under the usual plan of grading. Some would have gone away because they were disgusted with the treadmill; others, because they became discouraged when forced to go faster than they could grasp the work; others, because they failed to pass the examination, or feared lest they might fail; others, for many different reasons which the present plan has entirely removed.

Such a change is important, for where the old method prevails eighty per cent of the pupils attend the public schools four years or less. A late report of Newark, New Jersey, gives the following facts, which show a better state of affairs than exists in other cities: Forty-six per cent of the children of school age in the city were not in the public schools. Eighty-three per cent of those in school were under thirteen years. Seventy-seven per cent did not reach the grammar grades. Thirty-one per cent of those in school attended less than half a year. Less than four per cent reached the high school. Not one fourth of one per cent finished the four years’ course in the high school.

Though the improved mental training is one of the most important benefits of the plan, it must not be forgotten that there is a great saving of time and money. While under the usual method seventyfive per cent of the public school pupils lose from one to four years, under this plan seventy-five per cent will save from one to four years. Those who attend school only until they are of a certain age will receive considerably more training than under the old system. Those who wish to attend school only until a certain point in the course of study is reached will get to that point in less time. If all pupils are given the same training that they would receive under the usual plan, they will get it in from one to four years’ less time. When this gain per pupil is multiplied by thousands, the financial saving becomes apparent. Even if pupils did not gain time, but simply passed regularly through the grades without unnecessary loss of time, there would be a great saving of time and money. In fact, the loss caused by the shortening of the productive lives of thousands and the financial loss to both the pupil and the community become so appalling that one can hardly believe that attention has not been called to it long ago.

Thus I have explained briefly some of the most important steps leading to a plan of grading that has proved far more satisfactory than the usual method. My experience in working out this plan and putting it into operation shows that the opposition to it comes from those who have grown to believe that the schools are for them rather than for the children. Being more anxious to save themselves trouble than to benefit the children, they prefer to continue in the “good old way ” rather than to make the necessary effort to get out of the rut. It is a pleasure to say that the beneficial results to pupils and teachers have been so many and so marked that not only are the principals and teachers who have worked under the new plan almost unanimous in their hearty approval of it, but parents and pupils also are enthusiastic in their praise of the method.

When, less than two years ago, I became superintendent of the schools of Elizabeth, New Jersey, this plan of grading was introduced into all the schools of the city. I will briefly summarize the beneficial results following its adoption in one of the grammar schools : By the end of last June the pupils of the advanced division of the seventh year grade had done all the work of that grade and part of the eighth year work. When they returned to school in September, they took up the work where they had left it. By the end of December they had finished all the work of the grammar grades. To the satisfaction of superintendent, principal, and teachers it was proved that no class had ever accomplished the work more thoroughly. Those who wished to do so entered the high school in January instead of waiting nine months. The teachers of the high school bear witness that the pupils are not only doing better work than any previous class, but, because of the methods of study during the past year, they have gained the power of close application which so few have when they enter the high school. In two months they made such progress as to be able to recite with that division of the September class which had fallen behind the rest. It is hardly necessary to say that the sight of pupils overtaking those who had started so far ahead of them has had a stimulating influence all along the line. The next division of the highest grammar grade finished the work of the grade in March, and at once entered upon the high school work, instead of waiting until next September, when the others in the same room will be able to advance. Similar results are found throughout the schools, even to the lowest primary grade. The reports of the principal show that during the past year and a half, in addition to the regular promotion, twenty-three per cent of the pupils earned irregular promotion to advanced work. Not less than eighty-five per cent of the pupils are from one to nine months further advanced than they would otherwise have been, and sixty per cent have been reclassified and placed where they could do better work. The number in the grammar grades has increased twelve per cent. Teachers who before failed to hold the attention and to secure satisfactory order now succeed in both respects.

These results are the more gratifying because they have not required the employment of an additional teacher nor the expenditure of an extra dollar. Having put the plan in operation under varying and most unfavorable conditions, I know that it is as practicable for schools having three teachers as for those having thirty teachers. It can therefore be adopted in the schools of any town or city.

The great interest manifested in the plan by prominent educators and journals in every part of the country, from Boston to San Francisco, indicates that the general need of a change from the stereotyped system of grading is keenly felt. I believe that the day is not far distant when, with a system of grading which exists for the proper development of the pupils, with better teachers, —for whom there is an ever increasing demand, — and with a course of study suited to the growth of the mind, we shall have a system of public education superior to any other in the world.

William J. Shearer.