The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-15
Schools Taking Place
 As Force In Society
Two Years Work Of Visiting Teacher Declared
 Successful Harmonizing Agency '

outings, and special help was given him at school, so that he was able to make two grades in one term. The result was to change him from a retarded behavior problem to a normal, happy boy, and the school had fulfilled it's function as social force" s, Probably the most important work done by the visiting teacher is the find ing out of the childs real needs and sup plying them in such a way as to-preyent his outbreak into abnormal conduct. Indicative of the way this was accom- plished are the following figures, taken from the records of one of the three schools where the visiting teacher is employed ..r
 Trunacy work for the attendance de- partment was cut down 45 per cent. Suspensions Reduced
 The number of children suspended fof misbehavior to the superintendent was cut S4 per cent. -
 Of the problem children reported to the visiting teacher, .S7 per cent made their grades, saving them from the handicap of a sense of failure as well as saving the school the expense of hay ing the children repeat their grade.
 In her report to the. board of educa- tion, the visiting teacher states that a total of 15S cases were handled at Gun ningham and Pratt schools. A. majority of these cases were at the Cunningham school, as she did not begin her work at Pratt school until late in the year.
 There are four main headings under which the reasons for reporting children to me naturally fall,' says the visiting teacher. They are scholarship, home conditions, behavior and miscellaneous. Fifty-one of the cases handled during the past season were reported because of scholarship, 40 were because of home conditions, 35 were miscellaneous and B were behavior. ,.
 "Of the 15S cases taken up, 106 were promoted at the end of the year. K must be remembered that these children were not an average group, but were especially picked because they were headed for failure, and the percentage of failures would be. expected to be much higher than in an average group.
 'The percentage was only 13, there being. only II pupils. of the 15S who failed to make their grades. Twenty nine of the number left the school for some other city or district in Birming- han and II were withdrawn foc various reasons. .
 The visiting teacher has done no attendance work, as that is the func- tion of the attendance department, but there was a, decrease of 45 per cent in the number of cases of reported tru- aney at one school during the rast year. This was accomplished by at tacking the various problems of the children when the tendencies toward maIadjustment were first noticed.
 ''The visiting .teacner's work is vital, as is shown by the different kinds of cases reported to her, and the condi- tions tending to maladjustment found by her. A study of the conditions under which the .maladjustment child is iy- ing, while he is supposed to keep up the usual educational standard of the normal child, is Illuminating"
 In the long list of factors contrib uting to maladjustment in school chil- dren serious health problems, homes where both. the mother and father worked, required outside work by the child and lack of proper recreation for the child stand out most prominently.
 Problems of stealing came. before the visiting teacher, with several variations, she reported. The majority of these cases were settled and useful citizens were made of. children that had made starts on paths of wrongdoing. An in- teresting phase of preventive work Was done in one case. A boy who was not actually involved in a theft was brought before the visiting teacher and admitted that he was fully aware of the plans for it and inclined to be sympathetic with it. Here tendency was recog- nized and corrected before it had a chance to express itself in any, overt act, even of minor importance.