home; my youngest brother was much impressed by the fact that his sister was a teacher and he asked innumerable questions. One evening after I had told him something about the moon, he sat very still for a long time looking at it, and finally I asked him what he was thinking about. He said, "I was thinking how funny it is that no two people in all the world know just the same world. Nobody else in the world knows just the same people I know, and nobody else knows just the same people you know; and even when two people do know another person they don't know him just the same way because nobody says and does just the same things to two people; and even the moon is different to everybody because no two people ever know just the same things about it.” That childish observation gave me a new conception of the world—I had never thought of it before as a composite, evolving thing in the sense that it was made up of the individual worlds of all its people, worlds which grow but which do not lose their identity when maturity is reached. "Helping a child adjust himself to his world" took on new meaning to me; for I saw then that efforts to adjust lives to any world other than their own will either be futile or result in positive maladjustment to their own. Even our conception of what a child's world will be in adult life is so indefinite that the best preparation for it that we can give is to help him adjust himself to as much of it as, at present, is possible. Let me use my brother again as an illustration. In his child world a thing which interested him greatly was a telephone he made of string and tin cans. That telephone was doubtless a source of annoyance to his teachers, whose duty it was to keep his attention on things they thought he would need to know when he was a man; but it was that telephone which awakened in him interests that enabled him to adjust himself to his world when war called for young men to become wireless operators. Later, when I received a wireless message from a vessel in midocean saying that my brother (then on the Sea of Marmora) had heard them report to London that they were on their way to New York and had asked them to "Say Hello to my sister at 9 West 67th street for me," I realized more than ever that his world was not the world to which his elders had tried to "adjust" him. Now that he has charge of the Radio Department in the Chicago Telegraph Institute and works in a world that embraces the universe, I am again reminded of his childhood observation and its educational significance. He was prepared to take this place in adult life, not by learning to adjust himself to the world of his elders, nor even to the kind of a world his elders expected he would live in when a man, but by keeping adjusted to his world which grew up with him-a world which, together with the "worlds" of the others of his generation, constitute a composite world which is gradually taking the place of the composite world of their elders in the process of evolution. We have dwelt at such length upon the matter of adjustment because if parents can be helped to visualize the fact that children live in a world of their own they will realize that the only way they can become properly adjusted to it is in free activity with other children. The parents who feel that play loses its value as soon as adults try to make it educative will feel differently when they realize that every act of children's lives leaves an effect on their personalities, and, if opportunity is not given for their activities to involve a constantly increasing use of intelligence, their development is being arrested and they are being kept on a lower level than they are capable of attaining. Parents recognize this psychological law so far as school activities are concerned and insist that each year's work involve more intelligence than the work of the preceding year; but they often fail to realize that that law does not stop working when the child leaves the schoolroom and that play activities no less than school activities help or hinder the unfolding of latent powers. This means that a knowledge of child growth is needed in planning the environment and materials for play activities as much as for school activities. This does not mean that the child be required to engage in definite play activities at definite times-it only means placing him in an environment containing material and equipment which make possible play activities that will contribute to proper development and adjustments. Many communities are opening recreation centers-which is a step in the right direction-but few of them as yet provide for a comprehensive range of activities and they sadly neglect the children during their most plastic years. Directors of educative play centers are confronted with three questions: What activities should be provided for? What materials and equipment will call forth those activities? Where can the equipment be procured? Definite answers cannot be given; for since they are dealing with an evolving situation, the answers will change as conditions change. Only by keeping "up to date" in the "composite world" and in the worlds of the children under her supervision can the director of educative play answer these three questions. At first thought that may seem discouraging, but the very fact that they do change with life shows that the work has a vital connection with life. The play director must study the "worlds" of the particular group using the play centers at a given time, and see what facts, activities, and adjustments are needed for the children, to get the most out of these worlds; and then she must make the play center a miniature world in which those facts, activities, and adjustments enter. A brief summary of the attempt to answer these questions for the Children's Educative Playrooms in New York City may prove suggestive. First a list of types of play activities was made according to the following outline: I. Activities that help to familiarize the child with facts about his world. II. Activities that contribute to the development of his powers: A. Physical (1) motor control (2) sense training (3) body building (4) correct posture, etc. B. Mental (1) judgment (2) imagination (3) memory, etc. III. Activities that provide for (1) emotional expression (2) habit building. IV. Situations that involve the use of initiative. Under each activity note was made of equipment and material that would suggest the play activity. As we worked on the list we found that certain material and equipment entered into many activities; for convenience we called this "general material." It included such items as tools, boards, sand table, building blocks, toy animals, playhouse furniture, dolls, and cloth. This general material was kept where the children could help themselves to it at any time. Besides this general material, some special material was put out each day which the children were at liberty to use if they chose. This special material included games, soap bubble outfits, roller skates, etc. (Fresh waxed paper was wound around the mouth piece of the bubble blower before a child was permitted to blow bubbles.) At definite hours, story-telling, organized games, rythmic exercises, cooking, sewing, and swimming were provided; the children were at liberty to participate or not as they chose. Parties, excursions, and entertainments initiated by the children provided many educative activities. "Grown up children" were there to make suggestions, to give assistance and information, and to see that proper adjustments were made. Clay, paints, crayons, sand, scissors, reed, raffia, physical apparatus and pictures were purchased from school supply houses; tools, cloth, yarn, cooking utensils from local stores; story books from leading publishing houses; a victrola, piano, and "movie" projector from special shops; and a First Aid supply was furnished by a physician. But since part of the educative value of play lies in finding ways and means for carrying out projects, the bulk of material used was pieces of cloth, paste board boxes, boards, etc., brought in by the children. Following is a list of books which contain helpful suggestions for those who cannot get the first-hand inspiration of seeing the socialized school work that is being done in such schools as the Lincoln and the Ethical Culture Schools, in the Ungraded Classes in New York City and at Teachers College under the direction of Professor Hill. Bailey: Girls Make-at-Home Things. Stokes. Bancroft: Games for the Playroom. Macmillan Company. Beard: Jolly Book of Playcraft. Beard: Jolly Book of Boxcraft. Stokes. Stokes. Canfield: What Shall We Do Now. Stokes. Collins: Handicraft for Boys. Stokes. Dewey: Schools of Tomorrow. Dutton. Hill: Experimental Studies in Kindergarten Education. Teachers College, Columbia University. Holton and Rollins: Industrial Work for Public Schools. Rand, McNally. Thorndike: Notes on Child Study. Macmillan Company. Todd: Hand-Loom Weaving. Rand, McNally. Tyler: Growth and Education. Houghton, Mifflin Company. UNGRADED CLASSES IN TORONTO, CANADA It is with great pleasure that the editor makes available for school administrators in the field of special education the following communication from S. B. Sinclair, Ph.D., Inspector Auxiliary Classes, Toronto, Canada. The Toronto Board of Education is to be congratulated on having in its service a person who shows such rare understanding and sympathy with what is perhaps the most difficult field in public education. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCATION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I respectfully beg leave to avail myself of the occasion of transmitting the Annual Grant, to make the following report for the year 1920-21. I have visited each of the thirty Auxiliary Classes conforming to minimum Regulation requirement. Twelve of these classes were established during the year. A Sight Saving Class has been introduced in the Orde Street School; the teacher of this class would be benefitted by a week's observation of sight-saving class work done elsewhere, and subsequently by a special training course. A visiting teacher for crippled children has been appointed. There is also need for an initial class of semi-deaf pupils. Your Board is setting a worthy example in the treatment accorded these children who by nature, and not owing to any fault of their own, are deprived of the privileges enjoyed by the normal child. It would be a fine thing if the number of Training Classes for subnormal pupils, of which there are at present seventeen, could be increased. All who have made a careful study of the situation agree that of the 74,104 pupils in attendance at the Toronto Public Schools, there are at least five hundred pupils (sufficient for 30 classes), who would be better placed in training classes. In the present Public School class they are making little or no progress and are unhappy. In an Auxiliary Class they would be preparing for useful citizenship and would enjoy the work. Considering the present loss of teacher's time with such pupils and the hindrance of progress of the rest of the class, it is probable that the special Grant given by the Government would cover almost the entire excess cost of the change to an Auxiliary Class. |