“Our Local
Schools,” from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe
Journal.
Read before
Wednesday Study Club April 26th, and published by request.
The mothers and
fathers of Monroe should take more interest in our schools. If the parents were
more interested, the children would be also. Surely they should visit the
schools often and show their interest. Where our children spend 6 hours every
day, 30 hours every week, 184 hours every month and 1,620 hours ever school
year, there we should be interested—in the buildings, the grounds, the
teachers, the superintendent and the school board—and none should be satisfied
until the very best results possible have been attained.
Those who visited
the school building during the county commencement were obliged to have been
impressed with the many good points about our schools, and realized that there
are good, conscientious teachers and a wide-awake superintendent in our schools
from the appearance of the neatly kept rooms and the splendid exhibits.
Especially was the grammar school building clean and well lighted, but entirely
too crowded and seemingly ill arranged. The high School building is abominable
for school purposes. An up-to-date building would appeal to our young boys and
girls.
One very noticeable
thing about our schools this year is that all—teachers, pupils, parents and
superintendent—are striving to work in harmony, which is a wise move. It was
too bad that there should have been so much confusion and so much talk—“telling
tales out of school”—for a year or so and we should be happy that there has
been a change.
Now the needs are
legion. The board should be the back-bone of the school. It should be composed
of our best informed, best educated, the deepest thinkers, and most progressive
man the town affords, regardless of denomination. One of your own men, who
lives in another town, in asking about our schools in Monroe—the church trying
to run them.” Now it isn’t exactly the church, but the three leading
denominations as the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists call themselves
here, and, there MUST be SO MANYT of the board of the three denominations, and
so many of the teachers—and if the superintendent is Presbyterian one term the
next one must be a Methodist or a Baptist. For example, the two superintendents
preceding the present one were Presbyterians. They were both good Christian men
and thoroughly acquainted with their work, the last one being very progressive.
He meant well, but as Monroe isn’t, or wasn’t progressive, and he wasn’t a
Baptist or a Methodist he was a misfit and a mistreated man. None stood by him
except the Presbyterians, when he should have had the sympathy and co-operation
of all.
Our present
superintendent is wise and has brought About one great redeeming feature and
that is keeping the troubles and trials to himself and the school this year is
very successful, but when the time comes for a change the next superintendent
must be a Baptist—unless all the members of the different denominations, in the
meantime, wake up and realize that they are CHRISTIAN PEOPLE and that the one
great thing in the sight of God is that all followers of Christ are Christians
(the essential thing), and that all denominations must lay aside pride,
prejudice, envy, jealousy and all those things, and all work together as
becometh Christians, and that we must look to God, who is the AUTHOR and
FINISHER of every GOOD THING, for guidance and direction if we wish success.
Not only is this the trouble with our schools, but with Monroe. It is all right
for the Christian people of Monroe to work for the betterment of the town and
the proper way is for Christians to work together and have mass meetings in the
court house during the week and have the ministers make lectures and addresses.
It is because we are Christians that we want to have a clean town and work for
the uplift of this generation and generations to come. Monroe will never get
together any other way.
But back to our
schools.
After electing the
best board possible it is its duty to look about and take pattern from the best
school boards the state affords and follow their rules and regulations and take
an interest in the superintendent, the teachers and all the school children,
and then after the superintendent is elected, he should have a voice in
electing or recommending the teachers, for surely he knows who are competent
much more than the board.
There should be
weekly teachers meetings and the superintendent should know just what each
teacher’s work for each week has been.
All teachers in
city schools should be experienced teachers and they should get their
experience in training schools or in country schools. In the country, children
are not usually so hard to control and there are not so many attractions and
distractions for either teachers or pupils.
The teachers should
not only know the subjects which they are to teach, but should know how to
study the nature and disposition of children. They must teach children how to
study. When a child once knows how the hardest work has been done for both
teacher and pupil. The teacher must not do all the talking—in fact, she should
do only the very least, but make the pupils do the explaining and reciting, and
she must not try to each all she knows the first year. The teachers must learn
the gospel of the second mile, that is, if need be, do extra work after school
hours.
In the schools
today more attention should be given to the “three Rs”, Reading Riting and
Rithmetic. Have you noticed how many poor readers there are today among the
children? It is distressing.
As to writing—from
appearances one wouldn’t think it taught at all. The board should decide upon
what kind of penmanship is to be taught, and then see to it, that it and none
other is ever taught in the school.
Arithmetic. When a
child reaches fractions, then he should have a male teacher. Very very few
women can teach arithmetic. Why? To be sure they can solve problems and
understand mathematics as well, perhaps, as the men, but they cannot teach
it—because a woman never reasons very much—her mind is soon made up without
much reasoning, and in teaching mathematics to a child it must be taught to
reason form the beginning. Therefore a man should be employed to teach
mathematics from the fourth grade to the eleventh. All the Latin should be
taught also by a male teacher.
Then, two very
important teachers should be added to our schools—music and art. Our country
has never produced musicians and artists as other countries, as we have been
studying. All the schools all over our land should begin at once the training
of the children in there two important things. Music taught correctly from the
first grade and all the children taught how to sing correctly and all good
music taught would soon bring a great change in our nation. The two channels by
which our minds are trained are the eye and the ear, and it stands to reason
that both of these should be trained—and so they could—the ear by music and the
eye by drawing. In drawing the child is taught to be a close observer, the
straight and curved lines, the lights and shadows, and later, coloring, all
train the child’s eye as nothing else can. It teaches children to be close
observers in all things, especially in nature, and can anything be found to
rival nature?
If drawing teaches
our children to see correctly the straight lines, the curves, the lights and
shades, and to be close observers, wouldn’t they soon know the best in
everything? And the ear trained by pure musical tones their understanding would
be more perfect and they would soon only like to listen to the beautiful and
good and then their minds would be filled with grander and nobler thoughts, and
not many years hence America would be producing great musicians and great
artists.
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