Part 15 (1/2)
”A large nue of the courses in doh schools,”
comments Mr Dyer in his dry way Scores of such women anxious to learn all that was known about domestic arts constituted a class for which the school ell equipped to provide ”Then suppose we give them what they need,” said Mr Dyer Just fancy--a continuous course in domestic science! Yet there it is, in Cincinnati, with an enroll the public schools to learn domestic arts What could bea school--even though it be a continuation school--to fit the educational needs of Cincinnati people--grown-ups and children alike?
VIII Special Schools for Special Children
The Cincinnati schools provide for special children as well as for special classes of people First there are the unusually bright children, who ”mark-time” in the ordinary classes These children were placed in ”rapidlynone of the work, they were allowed to go as fast as their mental development would allow them, instead of as slowly as the other inning the teacher found these exceptionally able children lacking in effort and attention, qualities which they had not needed to keep their place in the grades ”The extra work and responsibility stimulated their mental activity, increased their power of attention, fostered thoroughness and accuracy, developed resourcefulness and initiative, and those other qualities necessary for leadershi+p” Why should it not be so? Why should not the specially able child be taught as thoroughly as the defective one? Yet Mr Dyer, speaking froe to say, it is harder to establish such classes than defective and retarded ones” Strange indeed!
For the sub-normal or retarded children Cincinnati hasfrom a quarter to a half of their tier tortured with the doing of things beyond their powers The overgrown boys have instruction in shop work
The overgrown girls have a furnished flat in which they learn the arts of ho at first hand There are in all over four hundred children in these schools
Siroups The anaeht in two open-air schools; six teachers are detailed to instruct the deaf children; one teacher devotes her time to the blind children, and ten teachers are ee of those children who arethe schools to the needs of special groups of people, and of special individuals, Cincinnati is providing an education which reaches the individual round and Summer Schools
The vacation school is planned tothe hot summer months ”For that reason,” says Mr Dyer, ”it provides industrial work of all kinds unassociated with book instruction, but reat amount of recreational activity--excursions, stories, folk-dancing, and a wide variety of games”
The field of industrial activity is a broad one, including cooking, nursing, housekeeping, sewing, knitting, crocheting, weaving and basketry; drawing and color work, brush and plastic work; bench ith tools,folk-dancing for girls and ball for boys The prihtful round of song, story, games, excursions, paper work and other forirls who have to take care of babies there are special classes The boys -roos around which the interests of the home always center By co-operation with the park coral part of the summer school work
Besides the recreational summer school Cincinnati has maintained for the past five years an acadeht make up back work in school, or do special work in any line which was of particular interest to them In these schools ”the very best instructors that can be secured” are employed, and their recommendations are accepted by the school principals when the fall term opens ”This school is one of the means taken to deal with the problem of repeaters in our schools,” says Mr Dyer ”Instead of requiring children who are behind to fall back a year, they may, if they are not hopeless failures, but only deficient in a few studies, reo on with their class We have followed up these pupils,”
Mr Dyer adds, ”and found that a nor years”
X Mr Dyer and the Men Who Stood With Him
A spirit of comradeshi+p and hearty co-operation breathes from every nook and cranny of the Cincinnati schools Principals and teachers alike sense the fact Alike they ai of the schools
”Never in my life have I found such a spirit of mutual helpfulness,”
says assistant Superintendent Roberts ”Every teacher has felt that she had a part to play, that she counted, that her suggestions orth while, and she has worked earnestly toward this end”
”Everywhere I encounter the saness to co-operate with the schools,” said Superintendent Condon, after spending three months in the place that Mr Dyer vacated when he became superintendent of the Boston schools ”There is a heartiness in it, too, that grips a ood-fellowshi+p in the Schoolrammar school principal ”It's always 'Roberts' and 'Lyon'
and 'Dyer' there They're as good as the rest, no better We all go there to work, and to work hard for the schools”
On such a spirit is the school systee, set upon its high hill of h the storical obscurity The opti; the pessimist is confounded; the searcher after educational truth uncovers reverently before this anization, this practical demonstration of the wonders that h the schools, for the children
Such is the triulory?
”It is not mine,” protests Mr Dyer, ”I did only my part” ”Nor mine,”
”Nor mine,” echo his assistants Truly, wisely, bravely spoken The glory is not to Mr Dyer, nor to any other one lory is to Mr Dyer and the men and women orked with him for the Cincinnati schools
”My predecessor was an able organizer,” explained Mr Dyer ”He left things in splendid condition, and we took up his work There were five things whichof the Cincinnati schools:
”First, we established the merit system for the appointment of teachers
”Second, we is and equipanized special courses for children ere not able to profit by the regular work