The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1911-07-20
BREAKS down TYR
Amy Of SYSTEM
Steel Town Solves School
Problem
Children at Gary, Indiana, Like School
Because There They Learn to DO
Things That They Like.

Things That They Like.
When the great Steel Corporation
decreed that city should spring up
on the barren shore at the south end
of Lake Michigan, tradition and pre-
cedent were not already intrenched
there to hamper novel plans. Will
liam A. Writ, an iconoclast OF the
educational world saw the opportu-
nifty, and went there to embrace 1t. AS
a result of his far-seeing plans the
children of Gary do not attend school
with the spirit of the convict doing
time Instead they are permitted
to learn to do the things that a nor
mai child loves to do. and In the way
that nature intended.
An article appearing In Hamptons
magazine by Rheta Child Dorr, telling
of what has been accomplished in
Gary, Indiana, gets SO nearly to the
heart of the public school problem
| that 1t Is bound to set precedent in
the matter of educational admins
| tration The schools of Gary do not
close for any long midsummer vaca-
ton. The public schools of Gary are
| in session every day each week ex-
cept Sunday from $50 in the morning
till A or in the afternoon, even on
Saturday.
The steps these wonderful Gary
schools have taken, which, II they are
not revolutionary, are at least extra
ordinarily advanced, are based on the
theory which a few doctors, educa-
r tors and politicians have begun to
preach to folks to do is not what ira
dition says they ought to do, but what
they want to do. Those Gary children
want to go to school; and they are
: not abnormal either.
Here are some of the ways, as
described by Miss Dorr, by which
they make a school which children
go to, not because they have to, but
because they want to.
The children are not kept at their
desks during their eight-hour school
day. In fact, no child has a desk.
He has locker where he keeps his
outer clothing and his books. The
desks belong to the children who hap
pen at the time to be using them. Nor
do the children work" all the time.
For the major part of 1t they are
[ simply living" ideally, happily, I'M
der judicious direction, doing things
that all children love to do.
Only about three hours of the day
are devoted to formal work in read
ing, writing, arithmetic and history.
About 81 hours are given to manual
training, natural science, music, liter
n1 a,tI 0rh
The rest of the time Is given to free
J activities in the gymnasiums, swim
ming pools and playground The
manual training shops and school lab
oratories are open during these free
periods and many of the older pupils
} choose to work In them alone.
, Perhaps a feature of these schools
which, even more than their "sched
ule," is likely to make some of the
more conservative educators sit up
and gasp is the fact that the children
, are not divided into classes or age
groups. The progress of each child
through the Gary schools Is his or her
own individual progress. 1t is not
made part of the progress of class
of 40 or so pupils.
The schools are made as much as
DOSolDlc llh6 TIC cIdi WOIlu III WHICH,
the child lives outside of school hours
and in which he must work when he
becomes a man. In fact the schools
are a Child World, In which children
of all ages live together
The little first reader children have
their simple manual training, build
ing doll houses. moulding clay, and
the like, in close proximity to the sew
enth and eighth grade manual train
ing shops. The little fifth grade
children work at their botany and
elementary science in the high school
physics laboratory. The elementary
and the advanced chemistry students
work In the same room and use the
same apparatus.
William A. Writ, superintendent of
the Gary schools since the building of
the town, calls this education from
environment, subconsciOus education.
The child sees other children doing
thing and apparently enjoying 1t, and
sooner or later he wants to do the
same thing himself. Moreover, by
watching he learns.
When a child enters the Gary
schools from another town they do
not send an instructor into the swim
|
let him stand around the pool and
watch the others until he cannot
stand around another minute. When
he gets into the water he just natur-
ally assumes the correct position of
the body, the movements come as II
by instinct, and very little formal in
struction is necessary.
There is a certain age at which
nearly all boys and many girls want
to get out of school and earn some
money for themselves. In most places
this means permanent end of a
boys schooling. But In Gary at any
time, winter or summer. that the boy
Of IA to Is feels an irresistible call to
immediate money-getting, place is
got for him through the school au-l
thorities, which he can keep for three
months, and II at the end of that time
he wants to go back to school he can
pick up his school work. where he left
off,
| Boston makes as good provision. for
its children in it's public schools as
any large city in the country, but, like
many fast growing communities