Norwich bulletin., 1919-10-09
SorI. GRAHAM SUGGESTS
 IMPROVEMENT, huu .Cuoo.

@iS fOH SCHOOL
 :" aoaition to improvements that
 eay under consideration. Ed i ward J. Graham superinten6en+ of
 the public schools of Norw;cb ,, ,N;-
 seventh annual report makes tbrae recommendations. He recommends s
 tiiat a dental clinic be .esta blished for
 ehe inspection and care Of the teeth eiiu commences The esta blishment of physicai framing for the schools E{tx 1 tulra recommendation is tbaf s,,ito pie rooms be obtained in some b,,i,S ing centrally located for use as suner lhtehdehts office and school commit = Zee $ room. Such, rooms Nil, Crabo,c points out would be more avsfyahIa tL lne teachers and public as three long hlShts or stairs are roo many to- cltpb Tn order to req oh, one of the rr,sszt.s i'm = Deftaht depaftme enIs-the 6enaxtrn..,+ of education-in the town wbich ro,r [ hAS it's office on the ,tf1ird f3oor of the town hall building
 Mir Graham's report says in part:
 English.
 Siffce the average person speaks ! many times many words a<x -ne writes: his education and cuBsz,re are Judged by those with whom he comes ! ln contact according to his 4axsJdtfy rn | express himself clearly and distiH ctx,., ! \eVertheiess many schools were ~re- 1 aGiring much more written tfsao orsI work in the daily recitationx wand the lifa4 test CT q pupils ability -ts use i the Engiish language was a~gwritten i examination. There were also many common errors of speech u mispronun- ! ciation and proyinciaaisnTs which might never occur in written work nd i Tn consequence very little was done-te i correct them when most of the time was given TO reading and correcting written compositions.
 It was with these premises in- mind that a course in oral English sSener- i ally following the outline as-Sukgested ; in Speaking and Writing E,r-Iis31 by Bernard M. Sheridan was Introduced into our schools two years ago. As carried out in the first six grades, at least half the time devoted to E.n-- gIlsh was spent in the following man ner. Each pupil stood facing the oth- CT pupils and teacher and told an ex- perience which he thought was in terestlpg and which he thought would interest the other members of the group This was preceded by a dis cGsslon by pupils and teacher of some Of the bad habits of speech such a the and habit ; trying to make the sen ! tences too long. and putting too many sentences in a story. They were neV- CT to use mere than three or four sen Jences. Each sentence should be com plete and every word pronounced cor rectiy
 At first. Of course the efforts were very crude, due to cnIbarra ssn1enr and self consciousness; hut after the first week or two il was looked forward to as a period of more than ordinary tn- tcrest and there was generally no lack .f volunteers to tell q story: Tactful teachers led their pupils 10 point out their own errors. a pupil was not rep- rimanded for error but corrected it himself. som etimes retelHng the whole story. correcting one mistake at a time until 1t was perfected. As the work progressed the teacher made fewer criticisms. appealing TO the other members of the class instead. pupils would make their criticism direct ts ha $lSrk tell Ina teacher what the criticism was and have her pass it on to the pupil whe had made the mistake ,n the story:
 This was leading away from the for mai type of recitation toward the more sociaIized type. making the cfrcnrn stances more nearly to approach al conv versation as it would actually be- cur outside of school. The pupil who made criticism understood that 1t 1 was valid unless he was able te show the efrer committed and the way te | correct 1t
 Finally, the teacher took a seat with the class, chose the first pupil te tell 1 a story. the pupil after telling the stefy called on other pupils and the teacher to make criticisms, the teach 1, CT cfltle4sins enIv when the ether pu- 1 DIS faEed to see some particular 1 fault. In this way the punils grad ually appropriated uncea seieusly the ! teachers standards of criticism, al | though be- influence never less i'm poFtaht grew less apparent: The pupils often ehese their own critics and. un- less they abused the privilege named ] the next pupil to tell steFyt
 The Improvement by this method in the speech of those reared in home. where English was not spoken was Many children of Amer ican parents were helped by those at home, rehearsing their stories for pos sible flaws before coming to sch eel. One little girl with agiRa ti0a de veloped a series of stories about a eat. these were merely fairy stories understood by her teacher and the other pupils as such and higtN- appreciated
 The results last year certainly war rant further efforts along the same lnie.
 Night Schools.
 Four class fer night school work were organized in different sections of tho town. namely, at Broadway, Greeneville. Taftvi1ie and the Falls.
 Through the. efforts of AZ American l lsatioE comrnftfee of women who | made house to house esnvsss of the Falls section of the city. class at the Falls schoo! was organized. There was such a large class that two teachers were necessary, The attend ance continued good and splendid re- sults were obtained.
 Teachers Professional Reading
 Course.
 The teachers professional reading course which was carried on during J> year proved to be of real value Each teacher was expected to read at least one of the books in the course and send to the office of the superin- tendent a written report the same some time before June 1. The work is highly commendable and should be continued another year.
 The books on the list were obtain ed through the generosity of the Otis Each book could be drawn for two weeks only.
 War Work.
 The same spirit that characterized our teachers and pupils at the en- trance of the war has been manifest ed during the past year. We have en-