Evening star., 1941-01-08
Schools Must
Be Fitted to
TheChild
Mistake to Push
Student Into
Wrong One
BY ANGELO PATRI.

There should be perfect agreement
between a child's abilities and the
course of study he follows, and the
sad fact is that there is rarely such
agreement in our school courses.
A child who cannot learn to read is
held in classes where he is permitted
to do nothing else but drill words,
and that spells failure. One who
is strong along mechanical trends
is held in classes where he never
sees nor touches bit of mechan-
ical work.
We seem to forget completely
that the main reason for the eXls-
tence Of a school, or a teaching
position, is the need of the pupil
for the instruction and the instruct
tor. When a child fails to learn
what he can learn in school it Is
the schools failure, not the ch1ld's,
and the school should be held &C
countable to the people.
We do queer things in this di-
rection. We learned that a great
group Of children were candidates
for a vocational training. They
were not keen for books but they
were strongly inclined to work with
their hands and. in doing so, to cul-
tivate the intelligence that would
make them highly skilled. Accord
ingly, we opened vocational high
schools.
To these schools we were to send
boys and girls who were hand
minded, not book-minded, and in
the beginning we did. Then what?
The teachers and the heads, trained
in books, by books, for books, under
standing books far better than they
understood boys and girls, pushed
out the working children in favor
of the book minded children by
raising the entrance requirements
to those of the standard academic
high schools. The hand-minded
ones were out in the cold again.
You have to have a high 10, based
on book knowledge, to enter school
where you hope to learn to make
good tools.
The same holds good in schools
originally opened for children who
were lopsided on the side Of the
arts. That is they we're power
fully strong in the graphic arts
or in music, and Indifferent or
worse, in the academic subjects.
These children could learn to be
skilled workers in their own fields,
but they were plain dubs in sub
jects such as mathematics, alge-
bra. grammar, history. BY going
to a school that accepted them as
they were, potential artists, crafts
men and musicians, they could de-
velop their abilities, and in doing
so strengthen and sharpen their
general usefulness.
But the teachers once more dis
covered that it was easier to teach
a book minded child from a book
than to teach a creative artist
through his own medium, easier
| to follow q schedule laid down by
q supervisor than to follow the hazy
trail of a creative student, and up
went the standards of the music
and art schools to the exclusion
of the child who could not make the
grade in academic subjects.
We won't have education for. the
mass of American children until
we realize that the first duty of the
school and the teacher is to the
pupil who enters the school, not
the one visioned by the bookish,
schedule bound administrator and
teacher. 1t is the pupil who is
important. not the schedule, not
the sacred course of study, not the
salaried job. Think it over, fathers
and mothers Of children who do
not fit the schedule.