The Case for the Junior High School: The Nathan Eckstein School in Seattle

OUR BEST HIGH SCHOOLS

by JAMES R. WARREN

THE young adolescent, aged thirteen to fifteen, may be considered at the sunrise in his life, though clouds sometimes hide it. These are difficult years, at the end of a certain innocence and at the beginning of a period of growing independence which often commences before the child is mature enough to handle it. They are years of rapid physical growth and development, critical years that cry for wise adult leadership, pliable leadership, evident when needed, strict when deserved.

These young people call for special treatment within the school as elsewhere, and in the United States the junior high school has been developed to fill this need. This article concerns one such school, located in Seattle, Washington, Nathan Eckstein Junior High School, which has nearly 1800 students.

A junior high school must surely enroll students with a greater range in height, weight, and maturity than does any other kind of school. Boys hardly four feet tall walk with peers six feet tall and more. Many of the girls are inches taller and pounds heavier than boys their age. Some students greet the principal easily; others shyly dip their heads as they go by.

As we walked toward his office, Alex Cameron, the principal, summed up the philosophy of the junior high school.

“We have here a distinctly American institution, where the subject matter of the early grades forms the base from which each student is led to extended and advanced study. We provide class experience in a great variety of subjects. It is a time for sampling the wares of learning. With guidance, the students begin to plan their futures with intelligent foresight.

“Here students advance by subject, not by class. The students at Eckstein leave the traditional grade-by-grade advancement behind. They are not locked in step with other students, except that all must pass through the required courses. Even in these required subjects their individual abilities are noted, and each is encouraged to do his best. From the outset, individual differences are used to motivate the student. In our increasingly complex world, we can afford to do no less.”

In Seattle this is not always easy, for though it is a city noted for fine schools, it must overcome great hurdles to secure adequate financing for those schools. Because state aid is insufficient to support a quality school system and because local tax revenues are limited by the state constitution to 14 mills on the assessed valuation of property, now set at about 20 percent of real value, each year the Seattle school district must place a maintenance and operation levy on the ballot. However, the seventeenth amendment to the state constitution stipulates that

1. Any special school levy must be passed by no less than 60% of those voting on the issue.

2. To validate any special school levy, at least 40% of those voting in the last general election must vote on the issue.

3. A special school levy can be of one year duration only, and, upon failure, may be resubmitted only once during the year.

In spite of these hurdles, Seattle citizens have voted the special levies into effect each year since 1957, except for one year when the levy failed and kindergarten classes were not offered. The success of the special levies indicates the dedication of the Seattle citizenry to quality education; and it speaks well for the Seattle district’s year-round efforts to keep the electorate informed on school matters.

In addition to maintenance and operating levies, the people of Seattle voted for school-building bonds, which were also subject to the constitutional requirements listed above. Nathan Eckstein Junior High School is an excellent example of the utilitarian, modern, and yet economical structures built in the Seattle district. Completed in 1950, at a cost of about $2,250,000, it is a two-story brick structure with a one-story wing. Glass brick window-walls provide unique light-control features in the classrooms. Housed within the building are a large auditorium, double gymnasium, spacious library, little theater, modern cafeteria, and thirty-eight classrooms, including four fully equipped home economics rooms, four industrial arts shops, six science laboratories, and a special orchestra room. Eckstein was the first of Seattle’s eighteen junior high schools to be equipped with a foreign language laboratory. Because the present enrollment is high, Eckstein is also using twenty-two portable classrooms, located in the rear of the regular building.

But what transpires within the building is what makes Eckstein the fine school that it is. Though Eckstein students come from diverse family backgrounds and from all income levels, a higher than average number come from homes where parents are professional people. Within the school’s boundaries lie the University of Washington and several residential districts in which reside many professors, doctors, and lawyers. The curricular and extracurricular activities reflect the attempts to motivate each student to the fullest, regardless of his background, abilities, and interests.

THE Seattle school district plans its program for the junior high schools with three purposes in mind: first, to provide continued training in the basic areas of knowledge introduced in the elementary schools; second, to enable pupils to explore new subject fields in order to become better acquainted with their own special interests, aptitudes, and abilities; third, to provide a gradual and orderly transition from the broad general program of the elementary school to the more highly specialized and intensified program of the senior high school.

During the three years in junior high, all students are required to take six semesters of language arts, social studies, and mathematics, and three semesters of science. On alternate days for two semesters they take music and business principles. The girls must take four semesters of home economics, unless they elect a foreign language, in which case they need take only two semesters. The same schedule holds in industrial arts for boys. Art is required for one or two semesters, the latter if no foreign language is taken. Physical education is required every other day for all six semesters.

At Eckstein, electives are offered in foreign language, music, art, home economics, industrial arts, language arts, and science. To allow more elective classes for the able learner, necessary if individual interests are to be accommodated more fully, Eckstein is involved in one experiment with a rotating schedule. By omitting an academic subject each day on a rotating basis, these students gain a free period a day for enrichment classes such as art appreciation, enriched reading, typing, supervised study, language laboratory, or orchestra. Plans are under way to expand the program next year.

In addition to the elective program, nearly a quarter of the students are involved in accelerated classwork. It should be understood that at Eckstein the grouping is by subject. Able learners may study with other able learners in any subject in which they have a common ability. The accelerated program is flexible, and movement in and out of these classes is handled quickly and easily, according to the needs of the individual students.

As early as 1952, the Eckstein faculty was experimenting with accelerated classes for able mathematics students. This year, 24.5 percent of the seventh-graders are enrolled in enrichment courses that use the latest School Mathematics Study Group materials. In grade eight, 21.5 percent of the students are in classes for able learners, 10 percent of them in accelerated algebra and 11.5 percent in SMSG classes. In grade nine, 27.3 percent of the students are taking accelerated algebra.

The Eckstein foreign language program offers French, German, Spanish, and Latin. Though it is not required, a total of 1062 students (about 60 percent of the enrollment) are studying a foreign language, the highest percentage for any junior high school in the state of Washington. In the beginning the students learn to understand and speak a language in its simpler form, but as soon as they are ready, they learn to write and read the language. Advanced classes stand ready to accept learners who progress rapidly.

English language arts offers enriched programs in the use of language and in reading. In addition, through the University of Oregon, the language arts department is involved in the U.S. Office of Education’s “Project English.” Certain Eckstein classes are now utilizing new curriculum materials in the area of “generative-transformational” grammar, and reports flow back to the Oregon Curriculum Study Center on the effectiveness of the new methods and materials.

In science, the enrichment classes in the eighth grade concentrate on the biological sciences. Ecology is a typical science area explored at this level. After considerable research and laboratory experience, individual students write in-depth reports on such subjects as earthworms, planarians, and fruit flies. Ninth-grade science enrichment classes center primarily on physics. Here, instead of a general survey, the time is spent on a deeper study of a few key concepts and methods which allow students to develop needed intellectual tools, the ability to test ideas and concepts, and to earn the satisfaction of achievement after successfully working problems such as these: “How did Newton work out his ‘proofs’ for his gravitational theory?” or “If tomorrow the whole earth were to move with a great acceleration toward the ‘Southern Cross,’ how would this manifest itself mechanically in different parts of the world?”

In social studies classes, the Eckstein students are participating in the Developmental Economic Education Program sponsored by the Joint Council on Economic Education in conjunction with the Seattle schools. The result will be development of a sequential program of economic concepts which will be integrated into the curriculum. Students in the ninth grade are at present engaged in a study of the economic development of the Pacific Northwest. Pertinent statistical data researched by individual students from news media and reference sources are put in graphic form to use in analyzing economic problems and trends.

Many other interesting and new methods of meeting the pace of the able learner are being tested or are in use at Eckstein, but we do not have the space to mention them here.

For the student who is having difficulty, there are special classes in reading improvement, in language arts, and in most other curriculum areas. Certain students are even being placed in typing classes to see if the faster mechanical means of writing might speed up their comprehension and improve their reading and composition.

THE fine arts receive considerable emphasis at Eckstein, not only as extracurricular activities, but as required subjects for all students. In the senior band, orchestra, and choirs, 326 students participate. Nearly 400 more participate in junior musical groups. In addition, the instrumental program provides numerous ensembles of various types. Team teaching is used in many of these classes. For those who do not take part in these formal groups, there are general music appreciation classes and classes in playing the recorder. Each year Eckstein students present a fall instrumental concert, a Christmas concert of vocal works, a spring operetta (last year a near-professional version of The Mikado), and a spring vocal and instrumental concert.

The art appreciation courses at Eckstein take students through the world of art from prehistoric to modern times, using historical materials and audio-visual aids, and calling for considerable research on the part of the student. In addition, there are classes where each student may exercise his creative bent sampling various art media under expert supervision.

Eckstein students and teachers have the advantage of a large and growing library. In a junior high school the range of maturity and of interests of the students is so wade that no one textbook approach is adequate to meet individual needs. The school library functions as a service center, housing and making readily available to teachers a variety of materials — books, reference tools, periodicals, films, filmstrips, pamphlets, phonograph records, and taped materials. The library serves also as a teaching station, where the system by which a library collection is gathered and indexed is explained to students and they are taught how to use reference tools effectively. The students bring to Eckstein the basic understanding learned in the lower grades, for each of Seattle’s elementary schools is also equipped with a library.

The counseling at Eckstein reveals, perhaps, a sign of our times. Three full-time and one parttime counselor take care of the counseling for nearly 1800 students. The counselors must rely heavily on homeroom teachers, who know the students best, to perform the basic guidance activities. The trained counselors give specialized services and advice to homeroom teachers who request aid. More counselors are needed; yet the school district, conscious of the yearly financial burden on the taxpayer and cognizant of other urgent needs, adds nonteaching time conservatively.

Still, the counseling at Eckstein has improved considerably over the past decade. Today, when necessary, any Eckstein parent can request from the counselor a biweekly progress report on his child. The parent then has the opportunity to discuss the progress of the student with the counselor. Any student who feels the need to talk with a counselor may apply for an appointment at any time and expect to be assisted. And, for every one of those nearly 1800 students there is provided an individual class schedule assembled by a counselor with the aid of other faculty members. Before final class schedules are determined, students, parents, teachers, and counselors are involved in the selection of elective classes which meet each student’s abilities and interests.

Students participate in more than routine extracurricular activities at this junior high. They are given important responsibilities in the day-to-day activities of the school. They are trained to operate audio-visual machines such as projectors, tape recorders, and phonographs. They help in the library; they serve as teacher aides and work in the front office. The boys’ clubs and girls’ clubs are constantly undertaking new worthwhile efforts.

The student government in some way involves every student. Students feel a responsibility for their school because they are involved in the democratic processes by which it is operated. Through the activity and award system, any student who has tried to contribute to Eckstein’s success as a school is recognized in some manner. Recognition is possible not only for accomplishment in sports but for work in music, writing, art, student government, and in various other fields of interest.

Because of the high level of participation in extracurricular activities, and in order to prevent interruptions to class periods, Eckstein, by taking a few minutes from other classes, has scheduled a period exclusively for such activities. From 9:30 to 10:00, on a regular basis, the student councils and hobby clubs meet, assemblies are held, the school newspaper is readied, plays are rehearsed, and many other undertakings are accomplished. When a student is not involved in some activity, he uses the time for supervised study, or his homeroom teacher may use the time for group counseling.

Perhaps the most revealing publication of Eckstein Junior High is not the schedule entitled “Special Classes to Meet Individual Needs” or the school handbook, or the teacher schedule, but the student-edited newspaper. In it the students reveal their feelings about their school. Laudatory articles have been published about the new typing classes, foreign students at Eckstein, the new rotating schedule, the junior faculty, the upcoming music events, basketball and other sports, the gymnastic demonstrations for parents, latest news on hobby clubs, information on scholarships and other honors, and items on school elections. Included are poems by talented students, news of student art exhibits sent abroad, ski club information, and biographies of new teachers. Perhaps the most significant headline of all was placed above news of a safety award. It stated simply: “Nathan Eckstein is Proud.”

The absentee rate at Eckstein last year was 3.53 percent. That means an average of fewer than 65 of the approximately 1800 students were absent each day. All of Seattle’s 118 schools boast low absentee records, a fact which indicates that Seattle students are not only healthy but interested in their schools. What better clue is there to Seattle’s comparatively low dropout rate?

This, in brief, is Nathan Eckstein Junior High School. But it is just one of eighteen fine junior highs in the Seattle system. Back in 1927, Alexander Hamilton Junior High School was opened, the first of Seattle’s “intermediate” schools. At the time, Superintendent Thomas R. Cole said, “Looking ahead we are planning for better educational services to the children by introduction of the intermediate school to relieve congestion in both grade and high schools and to provide more even distribution of school privileges throughout the city.”

The modern junior high school provides much more than that. Jack Greaves, assistant superintendent in charge of Seattle’s secondary schools, explains the function of these schools this way: “The junior high school congregates students in their early adolescence where they can undertake exploratory studies and be provided counseling services; and in addition, it has solved the logistics of present-day educational needs. The students and teachers are gathered in a building which houses the facilities, equipment, and other necessities that meet the needs of modern educational programs.

“Expanded foreign language programs, modern mathematics and science, physical education, language arts, social studies — in fact all curriculum areas at the seventhand eighth-grade levels, as well as the ninth-grade — call for specialist teachers and facilities which could not be provided in most relatively small neighborhood elementary schools.

“In retrospect, the decision of 40 years ago to develop in Seattle a separate junior high school program was indeed a wise one.”

If the individual student is to discover and develop his special niche in the complex society of tomorrow, the teachers in Seattle’s junior high schools believe that early adolescence is not too soon to utilize the individual talents, abilities, and interests of each student as a key to securing from that student the best work and the greatest progress possible.

Though it may be more costly, educating the individual as an individual develops an individual and not a personality molded like other personalities. The staff at Eckstein and the other Seattle junior high schools would be the first to remind you that the strength of our nation is built upon the individuality of its citizens.