New Britain herald., 1919-11-06


 tioning unit one intermediate three year transition period, partaking in content. method, administration, and school atmosphere of both the elemen- tary and the secondary, and one three-year period of genuinely sec ondary work is fundamental indeed. Nothing less than this is the real meaning of the junior High school. its pupil population will include not only those now in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. but all of these ages now leverage in the elementary six HraCles and all over fourteen who for ;tnN reason are out of school. It is Il pupil democracy.
 Its material plant has not been Cduced to one type. However, these Buildings are being planned for strict ly junior High school purposes Es- DeciallN are they being so built as to emphasize feasibility in the adminis- tt1in:r of instruction. shop facilities for prcvocatiOnal education of all va riCtieS. physical education. general husint SS fundamentals of both skill and information, concrete aCquaint- ancc with the world of fine and home q rtS. auditorium and directed study facilities. Netc. Their proportionatc space given to shops, kitchens, cafe ,"ria, printing cqui pm ments. lahoratOr- ltS. ~Nmna$iumS, swimming pools, as sr 1nhiN rooms, real junior High school lihrajics and museums is much great rr than one finds in the ordinary ::'hool buildings. These buildings must be also mmuNity center plants of a unique sort. not paralleling the senior High school functions in these H.. cf the material plant, we may cN- nect to find increasingly art rooms ( nd spacious grounds and other ap- pointmcntS in keeping with this cliti- cal three year unit in the reorganizcd public school system.
 '''Thc school atmosphere will be neither elementary nor secondary Hs we now know~it. It will be d junior high school atmosphere or it will be a failure. It either has it's unique character an dtonc or it is but d sham solution of d very VCNcd problem of public school reform.
 "Wc shall have better teachers and better supervision and moro mon teachers and a more pointed. focused curriculum. More men will become junior high school principals, and there will be a moro nearly divided teaching staff on the lines of sex. Starting d junior high school creates a situation calling for q selection of high grade teachers to whom to en- trust an institutional experiment. in q system of education. Better salaries will figure, broader training will be at a premium, years or experience will count and those with deepest un derstanding of youth will be selected.
 Value of This System.
 ''The psychological value of this junior high school is that il pro- Vidcs q favorable new situation for seriously conceived plans closely re- lated to a clear educational philoso phN Of administration. IT the junior school is anything, it is the three year section of our public school system. which, with it's newly developed types of 'Seneralized" subject mat ter, "project'' and other like meth ods of teaching. democratic and free policy of school man2~ement, and in innate and intensive study of the in dividualitieS Of pupils, seeks to direct pupils in finding themselves by eX erciSing their various traits, examining their various aptitudes and making possible intelligent choice of any spe- cial sort of definite training which may be followed in the senior high school or in higher educational inst- tutions.
 Unto this picture of the modern junior high school in addition to these larger features of the material plant, the principal and the special teacher the new entrance require tnI n16 subjects. the curriculum, differentia- tions, smplfied organization disci pline adjusted to early adolescence, and equipment, must 90 such fea- lures as directed school study, sys- tems of organized educational and strictly vocational guidance, length ened school day and school year. carefully supervised student activi- ties and card catalogs of individual differences recorded in such a way as to affect the daily administration of the school.
 "The junior high school is in it's name an Independent physical exist ence and form of organization but the outward manifestation of sound new philosophy of education. It is the name we have come to associate with new ideas of promotion, new methods of preventing the elimina- lion, new devices for moving selected groups through subject matter at diff lerent rates, higher compulsory school age. new and thorough analysis (so- cial, economic, psychological of pu pil population; enriched courses, varied and partially differentiated cur ricuIum offerings scientifically direct cd study practice, new schemes for all sorts of educational guidance ceducational' in q narrow sense, and also moral, tenn peran1 ental and vorationaD, new psychological char ;lcteriza tions of types in approaching the param ount school problem of in-