| Show S IN DISTRICT SCHOOLS OF SCHOOL PROMOTION AND TUB till STUDY IF P arithmetic Cann cannonville onville garfield Garft eld co utah july 1887 1 editor despot news it was formerly the custom years ago in our public schools school to promote pupils trum from grade to grade erade provided th chev e attained an average of a stated percentage of correct answers answer on an examination ora or a series of elaml da bons but recently pupils are pro mm cd whom their teachers name as being qualified for advance me t experience peri ence has bas shown that there will be a percentage of good and studious pupils whose names the honest teacher leacher will be forced to omit from the lii of those qualified to go on to the next highet higher grade with their classmates TUB THE AIM of the district school should be to do the greatest good tu to the greatest number i and a good teacher eacker will never overlook the fact that the be school is exclusively lor for the children the r should bear in bifid that the question to be answered in roaming promotions is not has tills tas child as and clear a mind a at his classmate 0 but will child he any less fitted for the duties of life if ke be goes on with the pupils of his class and works with them the succeeding year after reflecting ting and giving tois tais subject mature deliberation I 1 have come to the conclusion that promotions in our district schools should I 1 include DO ude the whole class with rare exceptions after the nast two yf aia of the childs school life until hk b reaches the class in the grammar school if eb children ildren are II ifft ft in the same made for two or more years they as a rule become discouraged and the b ben en atit derived from this repetition of studies 1 is 14 4 oot not at all commensurate with the time that is lost it should br be thoroughly understood however by parents and children that no pupil is it e entitled to promotion or commendation in unless his leachner can conscientiously recommend him as w a pupil who wao has worked according to the best of b bs 9 ability 1 I cannot contemplate without deep solicitude the falling failing off and curtailment I 1 of the 1 i STUDYING OF that Is so apparent appah ent in a majority of our district schools at the present time especially is this invariably the case ii ihie itic hie small and remote remore in the event that abe children grow up to the age of maturity deficient in this very important brauch ot of i tudy the carlmon common school edu education i not nor can it ii lie he of niu ewh 11 value the abe criticism to cover this detect is frequently enado that pupils do not make inake the anti and rapid advancement it lu thi hi and other studies that they dij III i the loir IDS i chool house ot of ye years rs ago the fact is that the pup pupi s in those bodd old country days davs of yore were much older and possessed of more inore mature minds inhabiting the br bra al I 1 iu and bodies ot of wen men and young B not those ot small mall boys and abd little iris children if you please one of the hindi arcia of the schools of today to day div is tha i fla fenced laced Ks as we ani 0 the itic of ine i oe school life of a miju rity of the pupils pupil ti we have drifted an are still too LOO far ia the di cli rec crecion ion of crowding in QUANTITY AND forgetting G QUALITY in attempting to do for children be tween nine and twelve years of al ae ge what ought not to be attempted lor the aver average alm child until three years later between twelve and fifteen tift een it I 1 is true that some few can do the wot k as now attempted with profit but not so the average and it is the abere average ge enild who must be the standard in auy any and all schemes of public education again in the study of arithmetic we rarely see results attained at all in proportion to the time an ana 3 energy expended this is because deac teachers s 1 trustees and superintendents wr who h 0 were educated at a time when arithmetic was the universal hobby cannot rid themselves of the idea that pupils children must obtain just as much knowledge in this branch as pupils did who were several years older so 80 it is not often that a lesson is given or an examination is made that does not contain some features in advance of the immature minds of the young pu pus instructors should not advance problems in arithmetic that are in the least degree difficult for tile the young mind to easily comprehend comp su such ch problems are not only oDly useless but are positively pernicious by putting obstacles in their way that it is impossible for them to overcome thus causing them to become dicou discouraged raged teachers should juds judge children as to their powers of logical reasoning and strictly coni confine ne themselves to those topics in arithmetic which I 1 ars are simple essential for children to kno know W and which the latter are able to readily un another cause of partial failure in an the teaching of this subject is the tendency of teachers to crowd too many problems embracing a large number of principles into one lesson all who are entrusted with the special training of the young and tender minds of children should keep beep constantly in view the well known tact fact that it is a good quail y rather than a large amount of work that is to be desired and that it is better to have one principle thoroughly understood by all mem bers berm of the class thin than many principles imperfectly comprehended i when all teachers tea chera in our district and other schools insist inist upon ulon this in each case they will tild fild it a great help to their classes in i knowledge it respectfully J al D 1 |
