Atlanta Schools are Teaching the Three R's

Ira Jarrell, Superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools

People who are interested in education know that it is changing.

This puzzles some and you may often hear, "Not the way it was when I went to school!" or "The schools are neglecting the three R's."

The 1900 Model School was the school set up to treat all pupils alike. They took the same courses, studied the same textbooks, sat in the same kind of seats and listened to the teacher say the same things to all. It seems strange that a country dedicated to the democratic ideal of individualism should permit its young citizens to be trained in such a manner. Those who could get through did, many without being challenged, and those who fell by the wayside were left to lie there. The waste was tremendous. The privileged few who went to college and succeeded seemed to justify the whole inefficient system. It is easy to see that people differ in weight, height, color of hair and eyes, but not so easy to see that they differ in understanding, in reasoning, in rate of reading, in co-ordination, in number concepts and in a hundred other ways. No two people are alike and a school fails in the very beginning if its setup is the same for all pupils.

I am not an advocate of what the public calls "progressive" education, but I am a strong advocate of modern education. Certainly over a period of 40 or more years, the teaching profession has learned much about how to teach in order to get results, just as the medical profession and the other professions have learned how to achieve their goals. Modern education does not sugar-coat learning and modern education does believe in discipline. Since this future of our country is dependent upon the education of our youth, modern educators believe that we must provide for their education not merely in terms of books, credits and diplomas, but also in terms of living and preparation for future living. Education for citizenship in a democracy should hold a foremost place in the program of all schools today. Every child should experience a broad and balanced education which will prepare him to assume the full responsibilities of American citizenship and at the same time give him ample opportunity for personal growth and social usefulness.

Children of today must under the law attend school through their sixteenth year. Therefore, we have greater numbers of children in school than ever before and, consequently, must have a more flexible curriculum. The community school is a laboratory for democracy, serving a community within a population area, providing an educational program planned to fit the needs of that community, particularly of its youth, remembering however, that the youth of today is a world citizen in a world community. The program of the Atlanta schools is directed to the realization of this type of school. In the development of a program that will permit each youth an opportunity to prepare for his assumption of the "full responsibilities of American citizenship and that will give him adequate opportunity for personal growth and social usefulness."

Some are always ready to believe that the fundamentals are being neglected, but the Atlanta schools are not neglecting the three R's. On the contrary, they are being taught all the children, not a privileged few, not only the "bright" ones. The teachers, on the whole, despite the current shortages, are better trained than ever. They must present higher certificates of preparation and demonstrated skill. They must specialize to a higher degree. Not only so, but they must continue to improve their skill by constant in-service or on the job training. Perhaps it can be said of educators that they are more critical of their own results, less satisfied with their own efficiency, than any other related group.

And surprising as it may seem to some, more attention is being given to the three R's than to all other subjects. Especially is there continuous, constant and more persistent interest in the matter of reading. One must read the a list of summer school workshop and institute announcements to understand the persistent desire of educators to bring to their classrooms all that teaching experience, scientific investigation and discriminating evaluation can offer. By standards set up by impartial authorities the current generation is at least two grades ahead of the previous generation. The big job of the public is to raise the common level of education, the average grade level of achievement. There will be some in the genius class who will forge ahead of the common element, others will fall far below it. Both these group's must be given that service most appropriate to their capacities and the public interest. But it is to the great in-between that public education must look for its contribution. Success or failure, attention or neglect, must be judged in terms of this section of the great rising generation.

Whatever may be said of the country as a whole is equally true of Atlanta. We are teaching the three R's to all the children of all the people. More than three-fourths of the total time of the elementary child in school is given to them; the remaining fourth is given to activities that utilize these or depend upon them.

During the past two years all of the Atlanta teachers have been engaged in a revision of the curriculum under expert directors and consultants. As a result of this there has been prepared a tentative set of guides presenting for the new teacher as well as the experienced teacher what is considered practical and fundamental.

The size of classes is being reduced as rapidly as funds will allow; more efficient and better trained teachers are being employed and placed in the strategic grades. In-service training is promoted not only by professional courses but by the guidance of the supervisors, by demonstrations of experts, by provision of better textbooks and teaching materials.

What can be said of reading can be said with reference to writing, arithmetic and spelling. The readiness not only for reading but for the others begins even in the kindergarten. Children learn words, see them in print, learn to pronounce them, to identify them; they count not only in an abstract way but concretely, such as lunch money, the number of children in the group, the cost of various items the children must purchase. Writing is basically another agent of communication of ideas from one to another. The idea is not so much to achieve or master some special form as to write legibly and meaningfully. It is closely related to reading, spelling, and arithmetic, and must be closely correlated with them in the elementary grades. Children are taught manuscript writing in the first and second grades because they must read printed matter but they are required to change to cursive writing in the third grade.

In spelling and arithmetic as well as in reading, standardized tests are being given annually, and in other ways the teacher and the school keep an active check on the progress of each individual child. The school department co-operates with the Junior League in a speech correction program that is bringing the three R's to many children once shut out. Moreover, it is furnishing teachers to hospitals and other institutions that the process of learning may suffer as little interruption as possible.

Reading, writing and arithmetic do not stop with the elementary schools but are continued in the high schools. Our new Atlanta curriculum, in the first year of high school and every year thereafter, provides standardized tests in reading, writing arithmetic and spelling as a basis for determining the ability of the students. If a deficiency exists the student is scheduled to this subject and every effort is made to help him master the subject.

The Atlanta five-year high school offers a program of studies designed to meet the common needs of all its youth. In the eighth grade (the first year of the five-year high school) the entire program is common to all students, there being no electives. A very small amount of electives appears in the ninth grade, with an increasing amount of electives appearing each year until the twelfth grade two-thirds of the program is elective. In this way an attempt is made to meet the differing needs of the individual student as he approaches the end of secondary education. An intelligent balance must be kept between general education and specialized education in the program offered the individual. The student must not be allowed to "elect himself out" of experiences in the basic areas of living--in those areas in which competence is demanded by our democracy. The development of an adequate counseling program is of paramount importance and our high school counseling program is becoming one of the best.

All the Atlanta public high schools are fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and a student graduating from an Atlanta public high school will be eligible for admission to any college in the United States. Students who plan to enter college are required to take two years of two foreign languages, one of which must be Latin for graduation. However, if any Atlanta student wants third or fourth year Latin he can get it and if he wants advanced mathematics beyond the requirements for graduation, he can get that. Our curriculum does a job of preparing for college while at the same time it has ample provision for the commercial or vocational student and even for the student who wants to make homemaking his or her vocation.

Modern education believes in democracy and prepares for citizenship in a democracy. We know that schools today sometimes fail with particular individuals. We do not condone failure wherever we find it. Perhaps there is no excuse for a physician's failure to diagnose and treat correctly but we do not reject modern medicine because of this failure, neither should we reject modern education. Give us teachers who are adequately paid and adequately trained and we will do an even better job.

source: Atlanta Journal Magazine, August 29, 1948