The Project Gutenberg eBook, What the Schools Teach and Might Teach, by John Franklin Bobbitt

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Title: What the Schools Teach and Might Teach

Author: John Franklin Bobbitt

Release Date: September 16, 2004 [eBook #13482]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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WHAT THE SCHOOLS TEACH AND MIGHT TEACH

by

FRANKLIN BOBBITT
Assistant Professor of Educational Administration
The University of Chicago

1915

CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY
Leonard P. Ayres, Director

The Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation
Cleveland, Ohio

  Charles E. Adams, Chairman
  Thomas G. Fitzsimons
  Myrta L. Jones
  Bascom Little
  Victor W. Sincere

  Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary
  James R. Garfield, Counsel
  Newton D. Baker, Counsel
  Alien T. Burns, Director

FOREWORD

This report on "What the Schools Teach and Might Teach" is one of the 25 sections of the report of the Education Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915. Twenty-three of these sections will be published as separate monographs. In addition there will be a larger volume giving a summary of the findings and recommendations relating to the regular work of the public schools, and a second similar volume giving the summary of those sections relating to industrial education. Copies of all these publications may be obtained from the Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Foreword
  List of Tables
  Prefatory Statement
  The Point of View
  Reading and Literature
  Spelling
  Handwriting
  Language, Composition, Grammar
  Mathematics
    Algebra
    Geometry
  History
  Civics
  Geography
  Drawing and Applied Art
  Manual Training and Household Arts
  Elementary Science
  High School Science
  Physiology and Hygiene
  Physical Training
  Music
  Foreign Languages
  Differentiation of Courses
  Summary

LIST OF TABLES

  TABLE
    1. Time given to reading and literature
    2. Sets of supplementary reading books per building
    3. Weeks given to reading of different books in
       High School of Commerce
    4. Time given to spelling
    5. Time given to handwriting
    6. Time given to language, composition, and grammar
    7. Time given to arithmetic
    8. Time given to history
    9. Time given to geography
   10. Time given to drawing
   11. Time given to manual training
   12. Time given to science, physiology, hygiene
   13. Time given to physical training
   14. Time given to music

PREFATORY STATEMENT

For an understanding of some of the characteristics of this report it is necessary to mention certain of the conditions under which it was prepared.

The printed course of study for the elementary schools to be found in June, 1915, the time the facts were gathered for this report, was prepared under a former administration. While its main outlines were still held to, it was being departed from in individual schools in many respects. Except occasionally it was not possible to find record of such departures. It was believed that to accept the printed manual as representing current procedure would do frequent injustice to thoughtful, constructive workers within the system. But it must be remembered that courses of study for the city cover the work of twelve school years in a score and more of subjects, distributed through a hundred buildings. Only a small fraction of this comprehensive program is going on during any week of the school year; and of this fraction only a relatively small amount could actually be visited by one man in the time possible to devote to the task. In the absence of records of work done or of work projected, unduly large weight had to be given to the recommendations set down in the latest published course of study manual.

New courses of study were being planned for the elementary schools. This in itself indicated that the manual could not longer be regarded as an authoritative expression of the ideas of the administration. Yet with the exception of a good arithmetic course and certain excellent beginnings of a geography course, little indication could be found as to what the details of the new courses were to be. The present report has had to be written at a time when the administration by its acts was rejecting the courses of study laid out in the old manual, and yet before the new courses were formulated. Under the circumstances it was not a safe time for setting forth the facts, since not even the administration knew yet what the new courses were to be in their details. It was not a safe time to be either praising or blaming course of study requirements. The situation was too unformed for either. In the matter of the curriculum, the city was confessedly on the eve of a large constructive program. Its face was toward the future, and not toward the past; not even toward the present.

It was felt that if the brief space at the disposal of this report could also look chiefly toward the future, and present constructive recommendations concerning things that observation indicated should be kept in mind, it would accomplish its largest service. The time that the author spent in Cleveland was mostly used in observations in the schools, in consultation with teachers and supervisors, and in otherwise ascertaining what appeared to be the main outlines of practice in the various subjects. This was thought to be the point at which further constructive labors would necessarily begin.

The recommendation of a thing in this report does not indicate that it has hitherto been non-existent or unrecognized in the system. The intention rather is an economical use of the brief space at our disposal in calling attention to what appear to be certain fundamental principles of curriculum-making that seem nowadays more and more to be employed by judicious constructive workers.

The occasional pointing out of incomplete development of the work of the system is not to be regarded as criticism. Both school people and community should remember that since schools are to fit people for social conditions, and since these conditions are continually changing, the work of the schools must correspondingly change. Social growth is never complete; it is especially