A REPORT OF A SURVEY OF THE CHILDREN IN THE UNGRADED CLASSES IN THE BOROUGH

OF THE BRONX

ELIZABETH M. TEAS

NEW YORK CITY

(Continued from the January Number.)

VARIABILITY IN SCHOOL ATTAINMENT IN READING AND ARITHMETIC OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE IDENTICAL BINET SCORE OF EIGHT

An analysis of the data collected by the City Superintendent of Schools, New York, give the following as the maximum and minimum chronological age limits for the several grades:*

From the above table it appears that a bright child of eight may be in the 3A grade; the average child of eight years in grades 2A or 2B, and the backward child of eight in the 1B grade.

The tabulation of the results of the survey revealed the fact that eighteen children had a Binet score of eight. The chronological age of these children varied from 8.5 years to 16 years. The number in each age group is indicated in the following graph.

The question arose,-To what extent are these children with a Binet score of eight, found in the grade distribution for normal children of the chronological age of eight. This study is concerned only with their attainments in reading and arithmetic.

Of the eighteen children who have identical Binet scores of eight, 2 are above the maximum grade limits for eight-year-old children. Nine are within the limits set for eight-year-old children. Four are within the limits in arithmetic and below the limits in reading. Two are within the limits in reading and above the limits in arithmetic. Only 1 is below in both subjects. From this it is obvious, that children with a Binet score of eight are not found only in the grades designated as the limits for normal eight-yearold children. The variation is found in both directions. Two children have acquired more school knowledge as measured by reading and arithmetic than the brightest in the eight-year-old group of normal children. One child has acquired less than the poorest in the normal eight-year-old group.

The nine children who are within the limits of the school acquirements as measured by reading and arithmetic present variations. Their grade distribution is as follows:

One is in the 3A grade in both subjects; 1 is in the 2B grade in both subjects; 4 are in the 2A grade in both subjects; 1 is in the 2B grade in arithmetic and in the 2A grade in reading; 1 is in the 1B grade in arithmetic, and in the 2A grade in reading; 1 is in the 2A grade in arithmetic and the 2B grade in reading.

CHILDREN IN THE UNGRADED CLASSES WHO HAVE A MINIMUM TRAINING OF FIVE MONTHS AND WHOSE IMPROVEMENT WAS SLIGHT COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE OTHER CHILDREN

As a result of the survey, 28 children were found who were of such low mentality that they seem to need more care than can be given to them in the public schools. This conclusion was reached after an examination by a psychiatrist as well as by a psychologist, and by a consideration of what the children had gained by school training.

CHRONOLOGICAL AND MENTAL AGE DISTRIBUTION OF TWENTY-EIGHT CHILDREN

If these twenty-eight children were excluded from the Ungraded Classes of the Bronx, the entire group of low grade inbeciles and the older children of the middle grade imbecile group of this survey would be eliminated. This would leave in the Ungraded Classes in the Bronx only those children who have profited and are still profiting by the special opportunities offered there.

NUMBER OF YEARS THESE CHILDREN HAVE ATTENDED UNGRADED CLASSES

The time spent in the Ungraded Classes by the 361 children of this study varies from a period of 1 month to that of 9 years. Two hundred and twenty-six children or 62 per cent have been in an Ungraded Class for a period of two years or less; 95 children or 27 per cent from 2.5 to 4.5 years inclusive; 40 children or 11 per cent have been in an Ungraded Class for 5 years or more.

The distribution according to length of time spent in an ungraded class is given below.

SUMMARY OF SURVEY OF UNGRADED CLASSES IN THE BRONX

1. The total school population of the Bronx on April 1, 1917 was 103,848. Of these children 411, or 0.3 per cent, were in Ungraded Classes. If the conservative percentage of 1.6 per cent of the public school population found to be feeble-minded by the Nassau County Survey Committee be applied to the Borough of the Bronx, there are 1661 feeble-minded children in that borough. To meet this need, it would be necessary to organize 60 additional Ungraded Classes.

2. Three hundred and sixty-one of the 411 children are the subjects of this study. Of these, 258 or 71.5 per cent were boys and 103 or 28.5 per cent were girls.

3. In this group there were no idiots, 189 imbeciles, 164 morons and 8 doubtful cases.

4. The largest percentage of failures in the 5 selected tests were in those which depend on native ability and the smallest proportion in the one dependent on training.

5. In reading and arithmetic great variation was shown by the 18 children having a similar mental age or Binet score of 8 years.

6. Twenty-eight children have profited little by the training offered in the Ungraded Classes.

7. These children have attended Ungraded Classes for a period varying from 1 month to 9 years. Sixty-two per cent of them have been in Ungraded Classes for 2 years or less; 27 per cent from 2 years to 4 years inclusive; 11 per cent for 5 years or more.

NOTE. The Stanford Revision of the Binet tests is now used in the Department of Ungraded Classes, New York City.

METHODS

CENTER OF INTEREST-THE BUILDING OF AN APARTMENT HOUSE-DETAILED WORK ON THE RESERVOIR

JULIA A. LAVERTY

TEACHER OF UNGRADED CLASS, PUBLIC SCHOOL 162, BROOKLYN

We took for our center of interest an apartment house that was being built between Willoughby Ave. and Starr St. facing St. Nicholas Ave.

We began our story and worked it out as the work on the building progressed.

Contracts were written specifying kind of material to be used and giving in detail a description of the house when completed.

We watched the foremen stake off the ground for the cellar and saw the laborers dig it. We did the same in the flower garden. The masons showed the boys how to make mortar, then they gathered stones and built a cellar in the class room, following the directions of the masons.

The boys built a brick wall across the school yard fencing in the flower garden while the masons were working on the building.

In the meantime we learned all we could from text books, Carpenter's Geography of N. A. and from pictures loaned by the public libraries of the manufacture of brick, lime kilns, lumbering, stone and marble quarries, iron and coal mines, smelting, iron turpentine, glass, linseed oil manufactories and several other materials as we needed them in the course of development. We also visited quarries, glass factory, lumber yard, smelting furnace.

When we reached the plumbing the boys soldered pieces of pipe with lead and they watched the plumbers connect the water pipes with the street water pipe and the waste water pipes with the sewer.

This is the first part of the work that seemed to hold a mystery. Where did that water come from? How does that water reach the top floor?

To answer these questions we went to Highland Park Reservoir where the keeper explained where the water comes from and how it is forced into the reservoir through the pipes we saw at the sides.

He took us into the power house and showed us a clock-like indicator that registered the pressure of the escaping water. He allowed the boys to raise the lever so that they could see the water rush into the pipe that supplied the district with water, where the boys live.

As we walked around the reservoir they noticed that they were high above the houses and a little higher than the tallest tower or building they could see.

They are ready for the next lesson on "The water that supplies the building."