ANNEX 3 SAMPLES OF PAPERS HANDED IN BY AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Ladies' Home Journal, February 1959 (Author's comment: Notice the work sample on history of the pupil who is preparing to become a teacher) IS THIS AMERICAN EDUCATION? IF YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WHO HAVE NOT (By Theodore Guerin) Reproduced on these pages are examples of written work of high school students. I have hundreds of similar papers that I have collected in high schools in which I have taught and from teachers in other high schools. When I show them to my neighbors, they are amazed. But another teacher is likely to say, "Why, I have worse on my desk right now!" My purpose in publishing these is to pinpoint the fact that not all children are born intellectually equal, and that no teacher can be expected to bring the 20 or 40 pupils in a classroom to an equal degree of accomplishment. The attemp to create this intellectual make-believe has relegated the American educationa system to its present backwater. You, the parent reading this, may feel removed from the situation because your child is doing well in school-or getting high marks, at any rate. Don't let those high marks influence you unduly, especially if you hope to send your boy or girl to college. Your child may be doing well only by comparison. To excel in some schools requires only mediocre work. Imagine the confusion of a young studert of the sciences, or any college-level subject, if he comprehends the printed word only vaguely and cannot write simple sentences. In many instances the education of our most able boys and girls is sacrificed because high schools provide courses watered down to suit the least able. Those who might be good students, finding the work too easy, fall into the habit of day dreaming instead of studying. They become the class cutups, or, more com monly, they pass desultorily through school with barely passing marks and become members of that not-so-select group-the gifted who give up learning, who do not go to college or develop their talents in any way. Their usefulness to themselves, and to all of us, is impaired or wholly lost. Most teachers are equally sympathetic to all the children they teach, but the slow learners almost surely make greater demands on their time. A teacher of the basic skills cannot gear the progress of an entire class to the advancement of the brighter students. He can and must spend extra time with the slow learners to bring them a point of comprehension that will enable the class to move on to more advanced material. The brighter students are left to their own devices or given extra work. This serves well enough if the student is self-motivated and comes equipped with s built-in urge for education. But it is an exceptional youth who can drive himself to make this effort without the competition and support of other keen young minds. One reason often given for teaching children of widely varying abilities in the same classroom is that separating the slow learners from the fast would damage their personalities. Surely it is just as damaging, if not more so, to be one of the slow in a class of mixed abilities. With a group of children more nearly equal in ability, the class is able to move steadily ahead. Neither the slow nor the fast learner is so prominently marked-and hampered or hurt. The boys and girls who produced these papers will be replaced in the classrooms by more just like them-bewildered, inept children, uneasy in a school situation that is as cruel as physical torture. Though some make little effort to help themselves, others try vainly to keep up with their classmates. Reluctant to place the stigma of failure on such children, unhappy teachers will pass them on to graduation. This is a distortion of the idea of "democracy in education." Truly democratic education would not expose all students to the same subject matter but would allow each to develop as much as he is able. Many of these students have the basic intelligence, but they have not developed the specific skills. This is one of the reasons that about 45 percent of those who enroll in college do not graduate. The percentage of dropouts is very nearly as great in high schools. To bring this fact graphically into the open may be the first step in correcting some of the misconceptions that have made a bedlam of intellectual training in the United States. Part of the solution to the present dilemma in education is the establishment of higher standards for able students, more honors and awards for academic excellence and realistic grouping of pupils according to their abilities. Probably most important in assisting teachers to eliminate schoolwork as bad as that shown here is the willingness of parents to recognize the degree of their own child's ability. |