VERMONT 60. Vermont. State Department of Education. Suggested Band and Choral Units for High Schools. Montpelier, The Department, 1944. 64 p. This publication contains two suggestive units in music study for high schools which are similar to the entire elementary course published in 1942. The two units, band and choral groups, are presented in terms of specific aims and procedures. The bibliography consists of material tested by use, including annotations. WEST VIRGINIA 61. Huntington. Board of Education. Huntington East High School Course of Study. 1941. 84 p. Mimeographed. In a general course of study covering all high-school subjects, music occupies 4 pages. General and specific aims are listed with outline of content for each grade. Junior glee club, applied harmony, junior band, and orchestra are similarly outlined. Elementary and Secondary NEW JERSEY 62. Haddonfield. Public Schools. Instructional Guide for Teachers of the · Elementary and Junior High Schools. 1943. 66 p. Mimeographed. This instructional guide is written by and for the teachers in Haddonfield public schools. The content is the outgrowth of many professional conferences with suggestions from staff members of Glassboro Teachers College. Music is presented briefly in the form of aim, types of experiences, activities, and equipment provided. NORTH CAROLINA 63. North Carolina. State Superintendent of Public Instruction. A Suggested Twelve-Year Program for the North Carolina Public Schools. Publication No. 235. Raleigh, The Department, 1942. 293 p. This bulletin is the result of the work done by various committees of the Twelve-Year Program Study. Part I discusses administrative problems and part II deals with various aspects of the curriculum for elementary and secondary schools. The fundamental principles of music are discussed, followed by a list of musical abilities for grades 1-8. Typical music activities for high school are presented including: Glee club, assembly singing, band, a capella choir, and orchestra. OHIO 64. Erie County. Public Schools. Course of Study Elementary and High School. 1943. 303 p. Mimeographed. A revision of a former course of study developed by county teachers, this guide is divided into four sections: General instructions and philosophy of education, elementary course of study, secondary course of study, and supplementary materials. Music is presented in the form of general suggestions, objectives, instructional materials, selected activities, and professional references for grades 1-12. TEXAS 65. Orange. Independent School District. Tentative Course of Study for Music. Curriculum Bulletin No. 260. 1943. 44 p. Mimeographed. This bulletin was prepared by a Fine Arts Committee in a Summer Curriculum Laboratory sponsored by the University and City Board of Education. Five sections are mentioned under philosophy: The learner, the curriculum, the method, the staff, and the relations of the school to the State and society in general. Section II deals with the course of study for grades 1-12. Instrumental music is outlined for junior and senior high schools and a general choral music course for senior high schools. "He Cherished American At age 11, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, having just finished a school examination, wrote an uncle and aunt, "Have used up five books in four weeks but I do not feel a bit tired after my Herculean work!!! I have written a composition on stamps this time but I don't think it is as good as the one on boats. I hope very much that you will write to me and tell me all about your voyage and if you do I will write letters of 25 pages to you in return." The letter was included in Part Two of The New Republic for April 15, a special memorial supplement devoted to the late President. Former Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, in the memorial supplement, speaks of Mr. Roosevelt's attitude toward American culture. Under the title "He Cherished American Culture," Mr. MacLeish states: "A leader of profound intelligence and perception like Mr. Roosevelt understands as well as or better than the artists and the scientists that science and the arts are the means by which the continuity of a civilization is established-are indeed themselves that continuity-and that the intellectual monuments of a people are more than "Libraries of democratic record-libraries in which the history of a selfgoverning people is set down-were objects of increasing interest to the President as time passed. When he spoke, as he often did, of his purpose to spend his life, after his retirement from public office, as a librarian, he spoke more than half in earnest. He was a conservationist of records as well as of resources. He took his duties seriously as an honorary member of the Society of American Archivists; one of its leaders recalls how a prominent American civilian-affairs officer in Italy was called to the White House to make certain that he understood the President's great concern for the protection of Italian local archives. He had the scholar's love of papers as well as the statesman's understanding of what papers mean. "Franklin Roosevelt's continuing interest in, and concern for, the cultural life of his country must be set down as one of the dominant forces in his life. It is too early yet to say whether that interest will be reflected, as Jefferson's has been, in the character of American culture itself. It is clear, however, even now, that with the one possible exception of Thomas Jefferson, no other American President has touched so deeply and so directly the intellectual and artistic life of the Nation." American Home Economics Association Annual Meeting The American Home Economics Association announces its 37th annual meeting in Cleveland, June 24-27. Three half-day sessions will be devoted to each of the Association's nine professional departments, as well as to each of the six subject divisions-art, family economics, family relations and child development, food and nutrition, housing, and textiles and clothing. Research in housing, household equipment, family economics, and child development as it benefits the Nation's families will be the theme of the meeting Thursday morning. General sessions will be held in the Hotel Statler auditorium. Conference on Elementary The Department of Elementary School Principals of the National Education Association has announced the eighth annual conference on elementary education, to be held at Syracuse University, July 8-19, 1946. "Strengthening World Organization-The Function of Elementary Schools" is the theme of the program, with emphasis on building a broader understanding of relations among races, nations, religions, and cultures. Information concerning reservations may be obtained from Eva G. Pinkston, executive secretary, Department of Elementary School Principals, 1201 Sixteenth Street NW., Washington 6, D. C. New Titles Issued in GI Roundtable Series Thirteen new pamphlets of the GI Roundtable Series being prepared for the United States Armed Forces by The American Historical Association have recently been published by the War Department. The purpose of the series is "to provide factual information and balanced arguments as a basis for discussion" of all sides of current questions presented. Altogether 42 pamphlets of the series have been issued, including the following recent titles: EM 4. Are Opinion Polls Useful? EM 5. Why Do We Have a Social Se- EM 6. Why Do Veterans Organize? EM 17. How Free Are the Skyways? EM 26. Can the Germans Be Re-Edu- EM 29. Is Your Health the Nation's Business? EM 38. Who Should Choose a Civil Service Career? EM 39. Shall I Go Into Business for Myself? EM 47. Canada: Our Oldest Good Neighbor The pamphlets are for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C. Price 15 cents. Victory Farm Volunteers Commissioner Studebaker has sent the following message regarding th Victory Farm Volunteer Program to chief State school officers: "The need for food for human beings in many parts of the world is ver serious. American farmers are again being called upon to produce an abundara of food for home consumption and to feed starving millions in other parts of the world. One of the limiting factors in production is man power. "The United States Department of Agriculture states that the farm labe situation is as critical in 1946 as it was at any time during the war. Th Nation's farmers have been requested to keep production as high as the 195 level; but domestic manpower problems. it is pointed out, continue to limit th farm labor supply. "The Victory Farm Volunteer Program that contributed to the recruitmer: training, and placement of youth as emergency farm workers during the past. years is continued during 1946. Public schools are again being requested by th United States Department of Agriculture to cooperate in this effort to back the farmers with much needed additional manpower. Whatever the State D partment of Education and local school authorities see fit to do to encourag the Victory Farm Volunteers will be a contribution to the production of more fo for more people. "School youth who work on farms during vacation periods will add to the needed labor supply and will have an excellent work experience that will develop them physically. They should develop a better understanding of in people and an appreciation of at least some economic and food problems of pe in other parts of the world, if these problems have been presented as a reason f their being requested to work on farms as Victory Farm Volunteers. "In view of these needs and of these opportunities, may I suggest that State Departments of Education and local school systems assist in the Victory Farm Volunteer Program for 1946." Per Pupil Expenditures in OLLOWING is the fourth and last F of a series of tables presenting ex penditures per pupil for a selected group of city school systems. The first three tables appeared as follows: Data for 45 cities of Group I, populations of 100,000 or more, "Education for Victory." June 4, 1945; data for 68 cities of Group II, populations of 30,000 to 99,999 inclusive, SCHOOL LIFE, December 1945; data for 80 cities of Group III, populations of 10,000 to 29,999, inclusive, SCHOOL LIFE, February 1946. The range in per pupil expenditures in a small group of 74 city school systems for 1943-44 was from $38.99 to $218.39, showing that comparisons of costs between cities cannot be made between any two cities of similar size but must be made between cities affected by the same geographic and social conditions. The small city which is the suburb of a large city has a much different cost pattern from a similar size city which is the trading for rural territory. There is also a large variation in the amount per pupil and the percentag total spent for the instruction account. percentage distribution is greatly affected the extent of the program of auxiliary ices provided, health, transportation, etc., the presence or absence of an adeq teacher-retirement system. The comp presentation of this study of expendit per pupil in circular form will show the e for most of the subitems making up the ma items and thus to a large extent show W the costs in one city are so much gre than in another. This table presents data for 74 cities 2,500 to 9,999 population inclusive. In the years from 1940-41 to 1943-44 the ant expenditure per pupil in average daily atte ance for current expense purposes increase from $82.17 to $106.81 or approximately percent. (See table on next page.) f 'otal yearly current expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance, expenditure per pupil for the 6 major current expense accounts, and percent each account is of total current expense, in city school systems, 1943-1944 SECONDARY EDUCATION The Small School Problem Again-A State Report by W. H. Gaumnitz, Specialist, Rural Education According to data recently presented to the North Carolina State Board of Education (see table below), there are at present 1,981 elementary schools and 606 secondary schools in that State which operate with staffs of four or fewer teachers. The significance of these data lies in the fact that there still are so many extremely small schools in a State which has for years been in the vanguard of the movement to consolidate such schools. Moreover, the administrative structure of the school system of that State is generally favorable to the consolidation of its school attendance units. The administrative unit is primarily the county rather than the local school district, and most of the school funds come from State and county sources. Small schools of North Carolina of four or fewer teachers The report presenting these data concludes that "consolidation is our gravest educational need. Keeping up these small schools is costly to the State and to the local units, and the students in these small schools are deprived of the better educational opportunities they would get in larger schools equipped to give training in vocational and agricultural studies. Furthermore, the small schools cannot possibly maintain sufficient libraries and physical education facilities." The statistics for North Carolina also reveal that teaching staffs of one or two teachers are not limited to the elementary schools. A total of 606 of the high schools employ four or fewer teachers; 114 of them employ but one or two While the smallness of the schools In a small school there is always the problem: How can a small staff provide educational opportunities which the variety of children attending will consider interesting and worth while? In each elementary school there must be instruction for children of every age group. On the one extreme, the school must start properly the beginners coming to it; on the other it must prepare its adolescents for entrance into high school. Within each age group, it must be prepared to deal effectively with a variety of environmental backgrounds and scholarship. But beyond the variety of instruction needed in the grade school, the small high-school staff must train for college. that proportion of farm youth, however small, which in every community looks toward higher education. The responsibility of keeping the door to the college open to all aspiring youth rests so heavily upon the average rural high heavily upon the average rural high school that many provide nothing college preparatory courses. To only about one-third provide any of training in agriculture; only a two-thirds provide instruction in r making for rural girls and almost: for rural boys. The very difficult lem in the small high school of pr ing vocational orientation and spe ized training to that large and gro segment of rural youth who musta livelihood in nonfarming indus and in urban communities has th scarcely been touched by most of smaller high schools of the U States. a The best ways and means thre which essential educational services be provided at reasonable costs r rural youth of high-school age and i need yet to be determined. The tion calls for far-reaching changes in administrative organization and instructional programs and tes The establishment in rural are larger units of school administrat with or without the consolidation of tendance units-is long overdue. Whether such a unit is the count third or a half of a county, or the u of two or more counties is of less portance than that action programs undertaken without delay. Small s districts cannot afford to provide t trained supervisors needed to rural teachers achieve maximum eftiveness; they cannot afford such ess tials as health services, student gullar library services, home visitation. cial teachers of music, art, ag homemaking, etc. Nor can try afford the special schools or training progra needed by youth who must leave the ral community and must be prepa> cope on equal terms with city youth whom they will share the responsi of a complex civic and industrial -tem; and they cannot afford the: seeing leaders who will be neede plan and operate a vitalized progra education for all American youth. Intergroup Education "Prejudice is a sin which every denounces and almost no one seric confesses... the possessor does think that he has it and does not t it dangerous if he has." This b Fotation from a speech by Ralph W. ockman suggests why it is important do something about intergroup eduition. What one school system is doig is reported at length in the Februy 1946 issue of Better Teaching, a 12age magazine published by the Cinnnati public schools. The Brotherhood Creed formulated y pupils in the Cincinnati schools is a >nstant challenge to shun intolerance nd to practice good citizenship: "I will spread no unfounded rumor r slander against any person, sect, or aith. "I will never indict a whole people r group by reason of the delinquency f any member. "I will daily deal with every person nly on the basis of his true individual. 'orth. "In my daily conduct I will conserate myself to the ideal of human quality, human fellowship, and human rotherhood." a. Public school teachers, principals, and Fommunity leaders in Cincinnati shared esponsibility for preparing the mateial published in this issue of Better "eaching. Brief articles, cartoons, and uotations deal with reasons for and he danger of various types of prejulice, as well as the importance of posilive education to help youngsters keep ree from prejudices and to neutralize hose which they have acquired. Teachrs and administrators will find three eatures of this issue especially helpful: 1) a bibliography of useful books and ilms; (2) suggested teaching procelures in various fields; and (3) the nalysis of intergroup problems in the Cincinnati schools. Secondary Education for Veterans University School of Ohio State University operated, during the sumner quarter of 1945, a special project in secondary education for veterans. There has now appeared a report, Secmdary Education for Veterans of World War II, descriptive of this experience. The bulletin is written by four instructors in the project and is published by Ohio State University. The school was not a large one; only 14 veterans finished the work of the quarter. The ages of the enrollees ranged from 19 to 26. Educationally some had almost completed their highschool courses before entering military service, but some had left school so early that they could not expect to graduate by earning any set number of highschool credits. Three of them were married. Most of them were medical discharges with all the problems accompanying that condition. On almost every page of the report one finds it emphasized that the veteran must be treated as an adult. Attendance at classes-a special problem with veterans-must be approached in ways peculiar to the problem and not by methods used with early adolescents. The program offered must be such as to appeal by its intrinsic worth, and the teaching methods employed must meet the veteran's need for individual work and his desire to get on without too many delays. The counseling must be personal and sympathetic without being patronizing. The whole program must be flexible, informal, and cordial. Above everything else, the experience with these veterans emphasizes the importance of establishing confidence— confidence of the veteran in himself, confidence in the school, and confidence in the instructor. Among the most stimulating parts of the bulletin are the chapters dealing with the various subject areas. The discussions of English, social studies, mathematics, science, foreign languages, vocational subjects, and the arts were written by persons who did the actual instructing in these subjects. World Affairs Week The Providence, R. I. Department of Public Schools has published a teaching guide for classroom discussion which outlines the program used by the schools in the Ninth Annual World Affairs Week, held recently in conjunction with an adult community observance. Topics include the following presented in their relation to world peace: International Understanding, India Tomorrow, Economic Future of Europe, The Balkans, Chinese Art, Anglo-American Relations, Atomic Energy, The Small Nation, Labor, and Palestine. The teaching guide was prepared under the direction of Elmer R. Smith, supervisor of curriculum research. supervisor of Copies may be secured from Department of Public Schools, Administration Building, 20 Summer Street, Providence, R. I. Teaching Money Management A School Savings Charter issued by the U. S. Treasury Department will be awarded to each school which indicates to its State Savings Bond Office that it wishes to enroll in the School Savings Program "to promote understanding of the personal and national reasons for saving and to give students the opportunity to save regularly at school for the purchase of U. S. Savings Stamps and Bonds" the Treasury Department announces. Information may be obtained from the State Savings Bond Office or directly from the Education Section, U. S. Savings Bonds Division, U. S. Treasury, Washington 25, D. C. Services of the U. S. Office of Education Available to Business Education "Upon the business teacher, and those who train and direct him, falls the key function of helping to select, train, place, and upgrade those who will fill these jobs. The U. S. Office of Education will endeavor to supply those services which on the national level can contribute most to this end. To the tens of thousands of professional workers in the field of business education must go. the important task of creating and maintaining that public interest and understanding which alone can supply the resources necessary to building a sound structure for the many phases of the broad field of business education." With this statement, Dr. J. C. Wright, Assistant U. S. Commissioner for Vocational Education, U. S. Office of Education, concluded the Fourth Annual Delta Pi Epsilon Lecture, given at Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Wright's address, "Services of the U. S. Office of Education Available to Business Education," has been published in pamphlet form. Copies may be secured at 50 cents each from South-Western Publishing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. |