Evening star., 1934-09-09

nlPn eCnOOl SLuueUJS, fbdIludl OuLioi
High School. First and 1 streets
southwest, for colored junior high
school students; Henry D. Cooke
School, Seventeenth and Euclid
streets. for white elementary pupils;
Morgan School, Eighteenth and Cali
fornia streets, for colored elementary
pupils: Abbott Vocational School,
Seventh and o streets, for white vo-
cational students, and Margaret Muir
ray Washington Vocational School, for
colored vocational students.
Seek Pupils Self Help.
The philosophy behind the char
ecter education program as 1t affects
the schools in which it is to be car
ried out demands that the institution
itself somehow must help the pupils
to assert themselves; that it help the
pupils overcome the threat of over
powering bigness. 1t is philosophy
which seeks avoidance of a pupils s
succumbing to practical nothing
ness of both mind and soul"
Therefore, as it has been set up,
the character education program
imposes three demands upon the
schools chosen for the experiment.
Each must be "a school of life, of
actual experiencing" Each must be
place where pupils are active,
where pupil enterprises form the
typical unit of learning procedure. J"
And each must have teachers who
sympathize with childhood and who
realize that pupils grow" only
through progressive activity of their
own.
The technique by which these de-
mands will be satisfied in the Schools
is to be akin to the common form of
legislature. Small groups of pupils
will be organized to discuss their COM
mon school problems. Each indl-
vidual child in group will be en-
couraged to think constructively about
his particular sphere in life, and each
will be urged to express his views in
conference with other pupils OF his
own group Small groups then will
choose delegates to represent them In
larger assemblies, where interchange
of ideas again will develop thought and
expression. Ideas CLEANED from the
conferences will be carried back to the
smaller groups for new discussion in
efforts to bring out of the individuals
constructive attitudes toward life.
Teachers to Advise.
In all this student activity, the
teacher will play the role of adviser,
leading rather than directing. With
the teachers, aiding them in main
tanning the delicate balance between
dictation and counsel, will be the es-
pecially trained counSelorS who have
been added to the school system to
supply the experiment with the neceS-
sary personnel factor.
Some of the problems to which
the citizen-pupils may direct their
active attention would be the man
agement of the traffic in their build
ing's corridors, management of SerV-
ice and conduct in their school cafe
terias, management of intra-mural
sports, the planning of assembly pro-
grams, management of study halls
and participation in school service
clubs such as the Junior Red Cross.
This program, carefully designed
as 1t is, creates its own problems,
and the directors of the character
education experiment are alert to
these even before the plan is launched
Foremost of these problems are: The
difficulty of providing adequate repre-
sentation from all of the smaller
groups of pupils while the representa-
tive unit of small group delegates is
kept small enough to be real de-
Lucrative body; and, the difficulty
of making each boy and girl feel that
he and she are truly important in
the larger groups of their fellow stu
dents. These perplexing factors
which, it is recognized, too easily
could endanger the success of the
whole experiment, will be subject to
close scrutiny as the experiment ad-
vances.
To Keep Records.
Perhaps one Of the most interesting
features of the experiment is the
type of records which it is planned
to keep. Here responsibility rests
heavily upon the teachers themselves,
for in order to keep the records re-
Quired, they first must be able to
recognize revealing facts in each
pupils behavior, attitude and work
accomplishments. Each pupil, the
teachers are being instructed, should
be looked upon as an individual whose
behavior pattern may be quite differ
ent from that of other children in the
same class Here personality will
play an important part and so that
pupils record may reveal something
of his own personality, the teachers
will be required to report anecdotes
chosen from the childS daily school
life.
To Protect Pupils.
Now, in keeping the various rec
ordS, Miss BackuS is warning teachers
against permitting pupils TO feel that
they are keeping a black book" in
which all misdeeds are recorded.
Anecdotes, it IS insisted, should illus
trate strength as well as weakness.
And, what is highly important, all
these records should be kept strictly
confidential, and discussion of them,
Miss BackuS demands, must be on a
professional plane lest our whole
program degenerate into that worst
Of all sins, goSSiping about pupils"
So the character education expert
ment will go. 1t is, very frankly, an
experiment, and it is one which the
schools alone cannot successfully con-
duct. They must have the sympa-
thetic cooperation of parents, and the
directors of the projects plan to enlist
the aid of fathers and mothers in
coping with the difficulties that arise
There is no disposition on the part of
the school authorities, Miss Backus in
sists, to conduct the experiment Sc
cretively. On the contrary. there is a
very live determination to proceed
with the test on as frank and open a
basis as any educational undertaking