accidents were reported; 18 had occurred at school, 5 on the way to and from school, 35 in homes, 5 elsewhere.

The boys and girls computed the number of days which all the children lost because of the accidents-1122 days, more than 5 months of school for one child. They decided to carry on a safety campaign. They displayed posters they had made in shops. They wrote bulletins and distributed them in the homes, urging elimination of hazards to safety. In each of the schools a safety patrol was organized.17

Children in a neighborhood of many cultural backgrounds are learning to live together in peace.

In an Iowa town the schools were asked to help combat Malta fever in the town and vicinity. Junior high school children helped doctors by doing such things as sterilizing needles and taking over some of the care of blood specimens. They telephoned to let people know when to come for tests. Along with these activities the children made a study of ways of making the milk supply of the town safer. They planned programs and bulletins to give the information to students in other classes. Learning the ways of

17 Arkansas Community School Program. Little Rock, Ark., State Department of Education, 1944. p. 62.

safe living is a large part of the curriculum, including habit as well as knowledge, adapted to the place where one lives. In Social and Civic Service and Understanding

Children learn to be thoughtful and understanding citizens through taking part in civic life. Not just to follow orders, but to think, to understand, and to act with due regard for the common good are commonly accepted goals of American citizenship. A citizen cooperates in planning what is good for the group. He accepts responsibility. Teachers help their children get experiences that improve their abilities to perform such duties well. The experiences vary with communities.

When People Belong to Different Cultural or Racial Groups

In many American cities, people are of different races, culture, and creeds. In order that all may work together for the common good, many schools help the children carry on activities or enterprises in which they can work with the people of other groups and thereby gain wider understanding of one another.

In York, Pa., for example, from the kindergarten through the high school, the public schools cooperate with the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the local city Round Table in the observance of Brotherhood Week. Basketball and baseball teams invite players regardless of race or creed. School equipment and facilities are shared equally. A summer camp is available to children of all creeds and colors.

In classes and other working groups children talk and study about boys and girls of other lands, of other races, and of other beliefs. They learn their songs, enjoy their stories, look at pictures of their national activities. Much is made of the beliefs of Washington and Lincoln and of their regard for the people of all races. To express their ideas on the matter of brotherhood, children make statements and write recommendations for their yearbooks and school papers. They look up articles in newspapers and magazines which show what people are doing about human relations. They appraise their practices of democracy.

Staff comments give evidence that the program has value. "The splendid way the basketball team at the William Penn High School gets along and the way all the pupils honor their Negro players along with the others is one of the fine outcomes of the Brotherhood program," said a principal.

"People are becoming more Brotherhood conscious. People of different races and creeds appear together in public without criticism. People are learning that because of inventions, swift

communication and transportation, and a resulting complex economy we are more interdependent. Churches seems to be more broadminded, too." These were results mentioned by an uppergrade teacher.

A teacher of the middle grades said: "Teachers' exchange materials, not only between countries, but within our country, such as between schools in Pennsylvania and Georgia, are helpful in developing understanding."

A certain neighborhood in Hammond, Ind., in which people of different nationalities live, gave an international emphasis to the Christmas festivities. Boys, girls, and adults planned activities around the way Christmas is observed in different countries. Each grade chose a country for emphasis, sang its songs, told its stories, wore the costumes of its festive occasions, ate its characteristic food. All grades worked together to carry out a central theme in decorating corridors and classrooms. Some classes went to a neighboring city to visit a museum that was featuring the ways of many countries in the decoration of Christmas trees. In the program as a whole, special attention was given to the Christmas customs of the countries represented by the families of the community. Adults who had originally lived in foreign countries, or who had traveled in different countries, were asked to come to school and help the children with the information they needed. For the community part of their activity, the boys and girls planned a nativity scene for the neighborhood square.

The school cooperated with adult groups in several evening programs, beginning with a tree-lighting ceremony. Through newspaper and radio announcements other communities were invited to attend and to participate. This neighborhood observance of Christmas was so satisfying that the project was undertaken the next year as a city-wide enterprise with all schools taking part.

Where children are concerned, there are no international or racial barriers. Not, "Are you black, or white, or American?" but "Can you catch, or pitch, or hit?" is the requisite for membership in the boys' baseball team. International understanding may begin in the vacant lot or in a neighbor's pasture where there is a hill for coasting or skiing. It is up to the school to find in what ways the curriculum can enrich the desirable experiences that are characteristic of the locality.

Children and Adults Together

No two communities are exactly the same in the ways in which children and adults get together and learn to understand each

other. One small school in New York State invites two visitors from the community to one lunch period a week. The aim is for the boys and girls and the adults to get acquainted. Parents tell of experiences they had as children at school. The children tell of interesting activities they carry on today. Affairs of the school and community are the main topics of conversation.

In a neighborhood school in a Pennsylvania city, mothers drive the children of the neighborhood to school, taking turns, partly to relieve one another and partly to get acquainted with their children's playmates and with the teacher and the activities of the school.

A second grade in one city elementary school turned a formal course-of-study unit on community helpers into a new and fresh activity adapted to their own community. Teacher and children planned their study together. Arrangements were made for the children to get acquainted with their postmen, firemen, and policemen. The children talked to these people and looked at their stars or other insignia on their uniforms. They asked the postman how they could help him, and he told them how important it was to address letters carefully. They visited the post office, mailed letters, and saw how the mail was sorted and put into boxes or sent on its way out of the city. The children now know the names of some of these city employees and speak to them by name. They developed understanding and appreciation of how a well-organized city really served the people, including boys and girls in school.

A School and Its Neighborhood

A midwestern city reported a gardening activity by the children of a certain school. A bakery was located next door to the school, and the baker was such a lover of flowers and birds that he kept a garden back of his bakery adjoining the school grounds. This garden was well kept and lovely. It attracted many kinds of birds. The children often stopped to listen to songs and calls of the birds and to be curious about unusual plants.

Later the baker died. The family moved away. Yard and garden were neglected, making an ugly spot in the neighborhood. So great was the change that the boys and girls and their teachers. were concerned about the situation and wanted to do something. Arrangements were made for the school children to take charge of the garden.

The children ordered seed catalogs and bulletins and spent many hours reading them. They formed committees for planning and work. There was satisfaction as well as real learning in restoring

orderliness and life and beauty to a yard and garden which once had been a beauty spot. When beets and tomatoes and a few other vegetables were harvested and turned over to the home arts class in the sixth grade for canning for the school lunch, there was rejoicing in the school and satisfaction in the neighborhood. The third year the property was sold and a building put up in its place. The children's interest in gardens continued, however, and some planned home gardens.

An article18 on school improvement reports that getting a better school made a neighborhood a more desirable place to live. In the yard, gullies where there should be grass, no shrubs, an unpainted ugly building In school, a take-the-next-ten

pages curriculum

A community where fields could not

be used because of gullies like those in the schoolground. What kind of curriculum for such an environment?

There were opportunities for the children to cooperate in cleaning up and painting the schoolhouse and getting the seats loose, to learn to like and to have order, to grow into appreciation of clean and attractive surroundings, to make an old storage room into a cloak-room, another into an office. These and other experiences in working together became an important part of the curriculum when teacher and children tackled the problem.

In addition, opportunities arose for boys and girls and their parents to study the shortcomings of the community-its needs for more productive soil and more profitable crops. One result is that the schoolyard is beginning to be trim and attractive with grass, young trees, and shrubs. Another is that many of the homes in the community now have electricity.

These things have come about because the school children set to work on a curriculum to meet the needs of their neighborhood. Now the school and the community are better places for today's children to live and learn in. Best result of all is, as stated on page 33, boys and girls through real-life activity are doing something to make life better, richer, more interesting. They have had a taste of self-reliance.

Understanding the Value of Civic Improvements

"Why don't we study about sewage?" suggested a sixth-grade boy in York, Pa., as the class made plans to start a new activity. "We've been wondering where waste and water finally go."

18 Blough, Glenn. O. The Picture in the Sand. National Education Association Journal, 36: 644-645, December 1947.