NEW EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23205, 1 June 1937, Page 17

NEW EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP

SOME EDUCATIONAL FORCES IN AMERICA VACATION SCHOOLS m [These articles arc contributed by a former kindergarten specialist and supervisor—Mrs Alfred Fels. The first and second of the series appeared on May 22 and May 27.] The following deals with conditions in America some years ago, but is so interesting and practical that it is worth reprinting, especially as all thoughts nowadays are turned towards July, when the New Education Fellowship will be visiting Dunedin and offering new ideas of every kind in regard to education: As school closes for summer vacation in or about the end of June and docs not reopen until September, there is a great need for some kind of occupation for those children who live almost entirelv in the street during this time. This, of course, occurs largely in the districts where there is a foreign population, where families really herd together and there is no playground for children but the street. The work of the vacation schools in Chicago is concerned with this problem. The work is largely supported by the Chicago Women's Club and clubs and also by private subscriptions and grants for teachers’ salaries from the Board of Education. In several smaller cities where there are vacation schools the support comes mainly from business Arms and private citizens. The schools are held in the usual public school buildings, all the work being under the supervision of trained teachers. Close observers who have kept in touch with the vacation schools since their inception observed a gradual evolution in the course of study towards the practical. This has been made necessary by the pressing wants of the people in the vacation school districts, and one cause of the great success of the schools is the feeling on the part of parents and pupils that in addition to the recreative and aesthetic benefits, the children acquire many things that have an immediate practical value in their lives. Great stress is laid upon manual training work. In one school a large part of the manual training work takes the form of weaving, the whole process being shown from the manipulation of the raw material (flax, silk, cotton and wool) to the finished cloth, rug or curtain. In all there are 10 large looms, some of which have been brought from Sweden by the principal —others have been made by boys in the public school. It has been said that the rugs and curtains made in this school were fully as good as those exhibited in the best stores. Pottery work proves to be fascinating to both teachers and pupils, and some good effects are produced. Work in leather and metal is also satisfactorily carried on, the articles made being of practical value to the children.

At some schools housekeeping plans are put into practice, the aim of the teacher being to show the children of the street what can be done with very limited means, in helping to make good homes. Nothing is earned out which could not be duplicated by the poorest family. In one instance a room was divided by screens into kitchen, dining room, bedroom and instruction room. Here the children were taught to prepare cereals, soups and other simple dishes, and to care for the home as a good home-keeper should —the daily .routine of housekeeping being carried out with a in the work which is frequently lacking in the real home.

Someone has said that none who fails to use the child’s Interest as a stepping stone to something better may be called a genuine teacher, and there is probably no better starting point for work in manual training than the games and other similar activities of young children as shown in the vacation schools. Professor Dewey has shown that the child passes through the experiences of the race and that the emotions and feelings that have survived through the ages are fundamental, and may well serve as bedrock on which to build with security our educational superstructure. Strange to say, in adult life these emotions, if not repressed, show forth in a genuine love of work.

Vacation schools do not pretend or expect to change the face of the world in a day. One year, at the opening of a school in the Ghetto, the Polish Jew district, the teachers encountered sights and sounds that made their blood run cold. . Half-naked children were wallowing in filth, while eating pickles and candy, that ruin any ordinary digestion. Decaying fish and vegetables were displayed for sale in close proximity to pmk icecream and pale-blue milk. The profanity of the parents and older children was dreadful, but nobody paid any attention to it. A mob of about 1500 men, women and children fought in front of the schoolhouse for an opportunity to enter the building, and three policemen were of very little use in trying to keep . them out. Mothers with babes in their arms and others pulling at their skirts fought like mad to have their children taken care of, and when unsuccessful turned away with tears and bitter reproaches. The . spectacle of gaunt poverty casting its terrible shadow upon the souls of these luckless women and children would banish sleep from the eyes of the most indifferent. The transformation effected by two days of school was almost incredible. Teachers and children had talked of the necessity of cleanliness, and the veiled threat that dirty children might bo rejected caused such a demand for water as to shock the owners of the tenements. The improvement even spread to children outside of the school, for from the first day to the last a crowd stood at the front door waiting like vultures for some unhappy child to drop out through sickness, so that one of their number might take his seat. On almost every day of the vacation school term, crowds or barefoot boys were found in the office of the superintendent of vacation schools, begging for the coveted ticket of admission which had been refused because of overcrowded conditions. Humour mixed with pathos was very common with them, as shown by a letter some of the boys wrote in 1903: “You got to give us tree kids tickets for vacashun schools, we want to get erjeicate. Yours accordingly, Mike. Isaac, and Tony.” In presenting his report, the superintendent of the Chicago Vacation Schools made these remarks:— Paradoxical as it may seem, one peculiar phase of modern charity is its selfishness. In the olden days, charity was exercised directly, but now most of us do our charitable work by proxy. We are generous enough when it comes to giving money for the support of hospitals. orphan asylums, and the like, but apparently we are too selfish or too indifferent to adopt preventive measures that would make most asylums, prisons, and hospitals unnecessary. Somehow, a great mass of stone shaped into an orphan asylum or a prison, appeals to our pride. We boast of its cost, proudly tell of our share in its erection, but all the while tramps, paupers, and criminals are being produced through our neglect, for prevention never seems to appeal to us, Chicago is a young city, but every day we see the closing up of waste tracts where the children used to play, resulting in the crowding of these poor unfortunates into the streets as the only place of recreation. Their homes are filthy, dark, and dismal, but in the exercise of their God-given right to play they are liable to arrest for infringing the ordinances of the city. Because the strength of the nation depends upon the physical, mental, and moral strength of the children of the nation, it is our patriotic cjuty to do what we can for their deliverance."