CURRENT NOTES
Follette, Belle Case La
Current Notes Caroline Pratt's Articles in ISctv Republic on "The [Sew Education Ten Years After^ Are Inspiring. By Belle Case La Follette THE NEW REPUBLIC has been publishing a symposium or....
...They dictate statements of what they are doing, and these aie given to ten-year-olds, who handprint them and turn them back for reading lessons...
...He did one thing and put that Dillon out as state road commissioner...
...I tell you why...
...ensue...
...but if you get in please put away the suckers...
...Otherwise he would make the farmers bankrupt...
...Ia., July 7.:— Thank you for reminding me again...
...Everyone became interested in material", costs, waste, the meaning of wholesale and retail...
...They mak" ' costumes and implements and whatever is incidental to i their play...
...i ScoviL A...
...Tt following Is a summary of Miss Pratt's interesting and helpful account of the practical operation of the school...
...in the process and work centers in the result...
...They became sufficiently proficient to be noticed by the postmen, and once they were allowed to go inside to help sort and stump the mail...
...So it happens that one child's body of information is ?uite different from another's, that different types of skill develop, and that differing enterprise...
...They learn about, electric currents in the laboratory and apply them in different ways to their city building...
...This came about through a request from the office thai it be relieved of this work, that is...
...The result is that about half the group become independent readers during the year...
...The informational side of this program is provided by exploration of the city farther afield than heretofore...
...Once I walked nearly twenty miles just to vote for Bob La Follette...
...Why are the farmers ;n Ashlsnd county io pressed...
...of the printing of reading matter for the sevens, and it was found that the ter.s could do this very creditably...
...During the past year, i fascinating stories relating to mail routes and carriers j have been written by the teacher of the class, typed, and I given back to the children as reading material...
...There are too many...
...We nil will vote for La Follette...
...The chil-I tiren who are allowed to go about the streets alone took | Ihe parcels to a nearby post office...
...They trace the opening of the country through isil-oads...
...added last year, made of ! i It almost a sweated industry for a time...
...If they trace back i any commercial line they ccme upon the white settlers j and Indians and are thrilled by them...
...The informational side required a jump into the past for which the children seemed ready The romantic medieval is highly satisfactory...
...A. Reasoner/ 'Weathcrford, Okla...
...At the .same lime, block building reaches it culmination al six Blocks arc l'ui'ni>ncd to seven-year-olds who wish lo go on with building, but the possibilities oi the shop, laboratory and kitchen are lea-tured, and the building of a city is suggested...
...The New Education Ten Years After...
...I have pinned my faith with the La Follette efforts for years and sure wish them God speed in their untiring efforts for a government of thei people, by the people and for the people.—R...
...I am an old Progressive...
...C. L. "If it Is necessary to define work and play at this time, I prefer to give a definition made by a group of children during a discussion period: Play is what you do because you want to, and work Is what you do because it nas to be done...
...They learned I to weigh, stamp, insure and register parcels...
...A. Brindley...
...It is very successful, chiefly because it is so basic in the school life...
...There is- a more urgent need for such a publicatirj than at any time in my memcn . Strength to your hands...
...Turning to the working out of these principles in the i ilasses ol children -seven years of age and over, the problem changes, in that children of these ages are becoming more interested in occupations corresponding to those of adults...
...Yes...
...second, the children begin to need the stabilizing influence of work...
...Our taxes are too high and they will be as long as Dillon is our County Road commissioner...
...July 7. —Enclosed find check fa $1.50...
...Part II will appear in our mext Issue.—B...
...Very little time is given to this forma...
...It is amazing to find how much the children know about the surrounding country and how much they can go down on maps with very little help...
...A full play program usually culminates in our school at the five-year age, and we have found it expedient to open the kitchen for cooking, us well as the shop, to six-year-olds...
...Going back to raw materials of paper, pencils, crayons, erasers, carries the exploration farther afield than here-I to-fore, entails trips outside the city independently of the j school, and finally leads the children to books and maps...
...Enough has been said, perhaps, to show how thes<-programs, based upon the two principles—first, that thev spring from experience, and second, that the information and the technique result from the play and work—develop...
...The elevens print: the twelves have for the past two years made toys...
...FROM AN OLD BADGER Cedar Falls...
...They read and get together material for a play, and finally produce something in which an audience is interested...
...Searching the environment for something more in the nature of work for the eight-year-olds, an enterprising teacher took over the buying and selling of school supplies, and this has become an established activity...
...While play dominates the activities of younger children, interest in work oegins, to supersede play in the case of older children...
...ROADS AND TAXES ; Ashland...
...The children , took over the mailing of Christmas parcels...
...To make it a hit more palatable lo the adult, I might translate It into these terms: Play center...
...New discoveries are made in a familiar field and applied to their schemes of play...
...I send you the money a: soon as possible.—Conrad Schoenberger...
...The Progressive which is about the only reliable source of vital information available to us poor suckers out here in Iowa...
...They begin to liv i their lives and dramatize their situations...
...At seven, then, we give the children every opportunity to learn these difficult techniques...
...Am sorry It has lapsed so long but have been financially very hard up...
...The children begin their research by visiting the city postoffices and asking questions about the system...
...FAITH IN LA FOLLETTES iOberlin, Kan., July ". —As I am first going out to help a friend a few days in the harvest field will send you my personal check for $1.50 to renew my subscription...
...They become very demanding, owing lo pressure, perhaps from home, to learn to read and write...
...The sevens play with blocks, and finally build a city of more permanent materials, containing houses, furniture, automobiles, and the like, which they make in the shop...
...It might be truer to «ty that the teacher b?gins to provide more opportunity for work than she does for play...
...A new feature of the postoffice...
...Neither definition should be construed to exclude pleasure in work or interest in the results of play...
...Written arithmetic is begun at this time...
...When the teacher makes provision for investigation leading to the acquirement of information, through trips, first about the building, next in the neighborhood and finally to all parts of the city, one child comes back wilh one bit of information and another with an entirely different set of facts, depending upon individual Interests as well as upon what each child already knew...
...When I lived In Wisconsin 1 was proud to be a La Follette man...
...and finally become acquainted with the latest carrier of mail—the airplane...
...The thirteen* this past year chose to have looms and wea"ve and do special work in the shop...
...Of course I want...
...Not ail is bad in Mr...
...A program of handwork, evolved in the ten-year-old group, includes the making of hand-prinled reading material for the sevens and portfolio and bookbinding upon order...
...She has two reasons for this: first, the children can be trusted to provide much spontaneous play for themselves at a later period...
...A good many people have tried to define work and play with less success...
...I like your chain store and chain bank and power trust stuff—W...
...j "A school postoffice occupies the nine-year-olds...
...They distinguish between the nationalities of settlers, and touch Europe | when their inquiries lend«them to the question of why these particular settlers come over...
...Kohler...
...They again meet dramatic material in the settlers and Indians...
...In the Issue of July 2nd, Caroline Pratt, the loundi ¦ and principal of the City and Country School in Nc York City, an outstanding and successful experiment : modsrn education, has an illuminating and instructi'¦¦¦ article entitled "Two Basic Principles of Education...
...From this they become interested in carriers of mail...
...getting-ready-lor-something-else work...
...They come upon the pony express and stagecoaches of the past...
...July 9.;—Do you know that the farmers are hard up...
...Keep up the fight.—T...
Vol. 1 • July 1930 • No. 32
