The Dalton laboratory plan

Front matter

Class.

BooL

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Plan 1

II. The Laboratory 22

Chapter I

The Dalton Laboratory Plan was developed in an attempt to get a school organization that would meet the needs of modern education under public school conditions. Miss Helen Parkhurst, the originator of the plan, conceives of schools as sociological laboratories where community life and community situations prevail. The children are the experimenters. The instructors are observers, who stand ready to serve the community as their special talents are needed. As observers, they study the children to find out what environment will best meet the immediate educational needs. As specialists, their function is to give technique, to point the way to the acquisition of information, and to maintain intellectual and technical standards. A new and radically different school organization has been built up on this basis. The very set-up of the school program enlists the cooperation of the children. By giving them real jobs, their wills become an active force in the learning process.

A pupil in a Dalton school said, ^^I like this school because each child has ample time to do his work. In other schools, when you go into arithmetic, you have to do arithmetic for half an hour and you have to do so much that you get mixed up. Here, if you begin to get tired and can't make your mind work right on one thing, you can go into another room and forget all about the first thing, so you don't get muddled up. Later, you can do the arithmetic. I like it, too, because you can go on and do your work and not be held back by children who are slower.''

It may be true that children do not know what things are good for them, but it is equally true that left to themselves they know the ways that are good for them. If teachers watch children at play or at work out of school, they can observe the conditions for efficient learning. They will find very little in common between their class-rooms with bells, fixed recitation periods, and endless lectures, and the pnpiPs own methods.

Out of school, a child knows what he is going to do. Whether it is a block tower or a stamp collection, the goal is there before the work is started. In the class-room, there is often no attempt to let the pupils in on the task at hand. More lessons begin with ^^ Class take down these examples,'' or ^^Take out your histories, turn to page 44, Mary begin at the second paragraph,'' than with even such a general statement as ^^ We will talk about the geography of Chile today. '* Of course, the class knows that the history or reading period has arrived. But the thread of a task is easily lost when it is done under arbitrary conditions. Without this thread, it is largely a matter of chance whether a pupil gets any understanding or control of the material presented as a ^ ^subject.''

Playing or working at home, each child adjusts his task to his natural rate of speed for working. He does a thing step by step without obvious spurts of haste or moments of waiting. In school, the speed of a class lesson is fixed by the teacher. It is aimed to fit the average ability of the class. But there is not a single individual exactly at average. Each child has his own rate of working, and the majority of the class approximate the average rate. Yet each one of these children is expected to follow every direction the instant it is given. The result is, of course, that the slower pupils hit only the high spots; fix their attention on keeping up; get confused and muddled and try to remember enough words so they can get through the lesson. It is no happier for the children who work rapidly. They are through before a new direction is given, but they have to wait for the teacher. Their minds wander. They have just started on an interesting train of thought. The new direction comes, and they are jerked back to the lesson for another moment's attention. They grasp the point and are again hung up. For both extremes there is a constant interruption of interest and attention in order to adjust to the class that tends to kill initiative. Even the pupils nearer the average are not free to follow their natural rate, but must strain or be bored in order to conform exactly.

In free activity, a child works until he is through, or until he is tired and finds his attention wandering or his mind becoming confused. In either case, he has grasped what he has done and it has the value of a completed experience. In the class-room, the opportunity to work by orderly stages is dependent on the clock and the skill of the teacher. Perhaps the class has been roused to a high pitch of interest and mental alertness; perhaps they are just beginning to understand some difficult new material. Suddenly the bell rings. Books must be shut. The lesson is over, and excited or tired minds are jerked to a new subject.

The constant interruptions to natural and orderly mental processes imposed by the organization of the school program account for the inadequacies of school education as much as shortcomings in curricula. The mind is a machine that works continuously and at its own rate. It can not stand constant overspeeding or frequent periods of blankness without revolting. Every teacher feels sometimes that she would like to shake her class into life and response. They have been shaken so constantly that the electric shocks of bells, rapid-fire questions, competition and devices fail to spur them to even the usual service. They let their minds drift, expecting the teacher to guide them in and out of the labyrinths of the daily program with the minimum of cooperation on their part. Is it any wonder that when we discount effort and interest, school ceases to become a developing process and the pupil gathers only the moss of information that comes with passivity? The Dalton Laboratory Plan offers a school machinery without these features. It will work with large classes and meager budgets.

Miss Parkhurst says, ^'We have been viewing things through the wrong end of the telescope. What should be taught, or how this ought to be ushered in, should not be the most important problem in school improvement. We want teachers with original ways sufficient to answer the needs of each individual. Let us free them from the yoke of method and system, and make it possible for them to use their own good judgment." This freeing process is the essential contribution of the plan.

The plan suggests a simple and economical reorganization of school machinery that permits the school to function as a community. It can be used as an efficiency measure without making changes in the curriculum, or as the first step in the development of a new basis for elementary and secondary education. The plan does not suggest a curriculum — ^it offers a way by which school life can function as real life functions in a community. School work is done in such a way and under such conditions that groups and individuals are brought into constant inter-action, and it is impossible for any one to live independently of others. The plan has certain tangible pedagogic advantages for public schools with their big classes and fixed curricula. With them, it may be looked upon as an efficiency measure for children, the learners. f The plan preserves grouping by grades. The grading may be done in any way fitted to meet the needs of the particular school. But it does away with most of the drawbacks of grading. Pupils work at their own rate of speed. They may work fast in some subjects and more slowly in others, and still remain with their group. The quick pupil can go more thoroughly into subjects that interest him, looking up special topics or doing supplementary reading. The slow child can confine himself to the essentials of a subject and work on them until they are thoroughly mastered. Children with marked bents can save time by hard work. This time can be spent in the subject laboratory where there is the equipment that feeds their particular interest. A child can remain a member of his appropriate age group and do some of his lessons with older and some with younger groups. But the plan does more than preserve the advantages of individual study and subject promotion. It requires a method of study that calls forth the kind of intellectual and moral habits that are so necessary for the development of an intelligent, responsible and successful citizen.

The reorganization plan worked out by Miss Parkhurst is adapted to eight grades, beginning with the fourth grade or its equivalent. Children would begin to work under the plan when they have finished the first three years of school and would continue working under it until they enter a college or university. Since it makes no demand on the curriculum, it can be used for schools divided into intermediate grades, and junior and senior secondary departments or to schools with a four-year secondary course.

The plan preserves grades for convenience in handling the children, but instead of class-rooms and one seat for each pupil there are subject laboratories. One or more rooms are assigned for each subject that is taught in the school. This specializing starts in the fourth grade instead of in the secondary department as in most schools at present. Instead of keeping the teacher a ^^jack of all trades,'^ each becomes a specialist in charge of one of these laboratories. In the youngest grades, where there are not now subject teachers, the grade teachers can be assigned to subjects on the basis of their interests and special aptitudes. In the usual elementary school, the grade teacher now has to teach physical culture, hand work and art, regardless of her interest or talent. Such an arrangement necessarily involves a waste of time. Under the Dalton Plan, grade teachers with special aptitudes can be assigned to laboratories where they give the pupils of all grades the benefit of their interest in a particular subject.

Like all macliinery for instruction, the' smaller the pupil unit per teacher the more efficient the teaching. At the same time, the plan will function with the units that are found in the usual large public school. A secondary school that is using the plan in England has a unit of about one hundred and ten pupils per teacher. Miss Parkhurst believes that a teacher can meet two hundred pupils as well as she can handle that same number in the usual class periods. In large schools there may be a number of laboratories for each subject; each assigned to one teacher who devotes her time to certain grades. Instead of having one laboratory for all the work in mathematics, there will be one for each mathematics teacher. Each will be used by the pupils of the grades she is in the habit of teaching. If she finds the attendance so uneven as to interfere with the pupils' work, she can fix certain hours for helping certain classes. In this way, she will not have to deal with any more children at one time than she does at present.

Having the pupils go to special rooms for each subject permits economy in equipment. In geography, for instance, instead of maps, globes, atlases and reference books for each grade, one set of such material is installed in each geography laboratory. Since the teacher is in this laboratory during the part of the school day set aside as ^ laboratory time,'' material is available at any minute. The school library can be made more useful than it often is. Each laboratory will have a shelf of books where volumes that are commonly used for special reference and supplementary readings, as well as those that may stimulate the children to further research, are kept. Any book that a teacher or pupil wants is thus available at a moment's notice.

Many educators believe that pupils suffer from too frequent changes of teachers. Under the Dalton Plan, a child will have the same teacher in the same subject year after year. His first year he must adjust to a different personality for each subject. After that, his work may change from year to year, but he wiU be dealing with the same teachers.

Each pupil has his work of the school year broken up into contract jobs. There are as many contracts as there are months in the school year. These consist of outlines or assignments of the work that are posted for each grade in each subject at the beginning of the month. The child reads these assignments and sees his work for a month, hence the word contract assignment or contract job. Seeing what he is to do, he accepts the contract and agrees to accomplish it. The actual working of this plan can best be illustrated by specific example. Horace Marshall is a pupil in the fifth grade

in a Dalton public school in the city of .

School hours are from 8:45 A. M. to 4:00 P. M., with an intermission from 1 :00 to 2 :00 P. M. From 8:45 A. M. to 12:00 noon is considered free time. It belongs wholly to the pupil and it is his responsibility to organize it to suit his needs. The half hour between 12 :00 and 12 :30 is taken up with pupil assembly, special work, or committee meetings. During this time, the academic instructors meet for faculty conference. The following half hour is devoted to group conferences. All the pupils of a grade report to an academic instructor at this time, but they report to a different teacher each day, so that there is a weekly report for each grade in each subject. The remainder of the day may be used for work in art, manual training, recreation or athletics, any work which can be readily handled in grade groups.

The school year is ten months. Horace studies five academic subjects, — ^history, mathematics, geography, English literature and some form of science. Therefore, Horace has five contract jobs a month, or fifty during the school year. Besides this, he will have a certain amount of work in special subjects — gymnasium, carpentry or art. As far as the school staff permits, this work should also be managed by contract jobs in subject laboratories. Where such instructors are on part time only, these subjects may be conveniently handled in groups in the afternoon, or at the close of the morning's socialized time. Horace works in all of these subject laboratories instead of in one fifth-grade room. He has a locker for his personal school belongings instead of a desk. His group is under the special care of some one teacher, and will meet in her laboratory for a short period each day, usually at the beginning of the morning. Horace's advisor talks over class plans and problems with the children,

14 THE DALTON LARORATORY PLAN

maki^s aiinonnoomonls aiul siii;*i!:ostioiis to help groups and iiulividiials in i)lanning Ihoir day's work. TluMi lloraco and his class-mates got out tluMT assignnuMit cards. On (lu^so cards, they havi^ cop'uHl in derail (h(^ work oT Uu^ monthly contract in each subject.

TluM'c^ is no tinu^ sch(Hlul(\ no bell to sununou lloraci^ from ont^ room to another. lie determini^s to work on his j;'(M>graphy this morning and so go(\s to ilu^ g(H)gra|)hy laboratory. His Avork may he reading nM'iM'cMices, qu(\^tions to be answ(M-(Hl, maps to bi^ tlrawn or other pertinent matliM*. ll(^ (»arri(vs on liis work indi^pendently, (Mil(M'ing and K\Mving {\\c room wluMi and as ho ph^asi^s. 'Vho time h(^ sp(Muls tluM'i^ is (h^terminiHi enlin^ly by his inl(M-(^st-span and his faligm\ If otluM* liflh-gradi^ l)upils are in the laboratory al tlu^ sanu^ (inu^ lu^ may join tliem. ^Vhc grouj) is allowinl (o talk, lu^lj) each olh(M\ e\ehang(^ books and i)ap(M*s, in fact (hey sliould be (MieonragiHl to work together. As they work, th(\v maki^ notes on questions they can not answtM' among th(Mnst^h'(\s or on any j)oint wIumu^ the tc^achor's advict^ is ntHHUnl. She is in the laboratory during tlu^ whoh^ morning helping groups or individuals, so iioruce is iree to go to her as lio requires assistance. Or slie may call his group to her to see what they are doing, discuss difficult questions or make suggestions about bett(H- ways of working.

Before leaving the laboratory, Horace indicates on the instructor's subjc^ct graph the amount of work completed. If he is in any doubt as to the amount covered, h(^ may ask Iho instructor to assist him in this. lie also indicates tlio amount \w has done by a lini^ on his own contract card. If he leaves before the end of the free laboratory work time, he will select anoth(»r subject, go to that laboratory and work there as he did in the geography room.

If Miss Parkhurst's program is followed exactly, Horace will have an hour at the end of the morning for group work witli his own grades Th(^ first part of this he will spcvnd in ass(*ml)ly, in work for the school activities he is intc^rc^stinl in, or in having a special lesson, or giving a group report with all or part of his grade. The last half hour he spends in a regular form or group meeting. Since he has only one of thes(^ a week in c^acli subject, it will not pass as the* daily recitation does. Miss Parkhurst calls this group work, *^ class meetings or conferences'' in order to distinguish it from the ordinary recitation or oral lesson period. Enough time should be given class conferences to enable the teacher to present things relating to the subject outside the pupil's experience, things impossible for him to discover with his limited time and equipment ; to guide real discussions of the subject by the pupils and to review and round up the assignment.

In the afternoon, Horace's grade will probably have a more regular time-table. Gymnasium, recreation, music and certain kinds of shop work, notably cooking, depend upon organized groups for their value and their success. Part of the afternoon may be spent on a time-table and part in free study for art and carpentry, or all of it may be given over to classes and time found for more than one recitation a week in the academic subjects. Recitations in American schools correspond to what are known as oral lessons in English schools.

One of the advantages of the plan is that each school can adopt the time-table best suited to its needs. The one essential is that enough time be saved for free study to enable the pupils to work on contracts instead of daily les-

Bons, and to work at their own rate of speed. Whether pupils have home work to do besides the time put in in subject laboratories will depend on the length of the school day and the proportion of the day given to free study and to classes. In Horace ^s all-day school, the children ought to get practically all their work done in school. In the English school that will be described later, pupils have practically as much to do at home as they did under the old plan. When the laboratory time is not long enough to do aU the work required in the contract, some time should be spent in planning with the pupils. The first attack on new problems, reference work, map drawing, anything that is likely to prove difficult or that requires the use of apparatus and equipment should be done in school, and literature, essays and drill work where the principles have been mastered should be saved for home study.

The laboratory plan has given its pupils a definite advantage in mental and social habits where it has been tried. Free study time has made it possible for children to adjust their work to their own rate of speed. This eliminates idleness for the quick child and overstrain and jumping for the slow child. It permits continuity of interest and effort by minimizing artificial interruptions. But above all, it permits children to learn by the scientific method, to investigate and discover for themselves.

Pupils differ in their likes and dislikes of subjects. The time needed for mastering a subject is dependent upon the interest the pupil feels in it — the greater the interest, the less the time required. Subject antipathies are usually identical with subject weaknesses. Eeadjustment of the time schedule permits individual pupils to devote more time to their particular obstacles with the result that antipathies are eliminated.

It is well known that pupils often undervalue the time of their instructor. Their own time, however, is generally rated mth some accuracy. That it can be utilized with maximum efficiency under the Dalton Plan is shown in the arrangement of the school day described above.

The usual class-room organization, in spite of the number of children working together, has few of the characteristics of group work as carried on outside the school-room. Classes are too large. Individual differences, ability and interest-span are too varied to enable the class to function as an entity. Small groups that come together voluntarily in the subject laboratory can work creatively. Interest in the immediate problem has drawn individuals together. Each is anxious to contribute and to listen. Since the study that preceded this discussion was individual, each has an individual point of view and special information. Putting all this together, the result is a more thorough, finished, and child-like piece of work than is possible under a system of recitations.

Miss Parkhurst feels that different subject laboratories permit the children to enjoy a larger world. In any one laboratory the work parallels the life of a real community. The children deal with each other, they share experiences and communicate them to others. There is a common interest in the study in each laboratory, a thing impossible in a room where several subjects are being taught. The atmosphere of the laboratory eliminates to a considerable degree, if not entirely, the ^ ^ drive ^' which is often evident in a class-room. Besides the intermingling within the grade referred to above, there is, of course, intercourse with other groups. Older children are able to help younger with work and assignments they have already been over. Younger pupils read the assignments and see children working in grades beyond their own. The spirit of mutual respect and responsibility that arises from friendly pupil-teacher relations among children is recognized. While pupils do not do identical work, the relationship between advanced science and elementary science is closer than that between different subjects in the same grade. Experiments in geography do not differ in kind, only in degree. This similarity tends not to distraction, but to positive helpfulness. There is a legitimate disorder in a carpentry shop, which would be disturbing to the atmosphere of an English laboratory. If a child is working on a problem in English which involves carpentry. Miss Parkhurst believes it is better for him to decide to go into the carpentry shop. This is of real benefit in two ways. It definitely classifies his knowledge, and it brings to him a clearer understanding of the interrelation of his subjects. Its effect upon his nervous organism is also noticeable. Freedom to move about produces a certain relaxation which releases energy for other purposes.

Each individual and each group learns that privileges may not be enjoyed without a corresponding responsibility. It is not what they do, so much as whether or not they feel each piece of work as their own responsibility.

The relation of teacher and pupil is transformed. Instead of the ^4ock-step'' rule, a natural contact is established. A respect without fear, a joy in daily living, a willingness to do hard work — all these and more have been observed in the schools where the plan has been tried.

Chapter II

The reorganization of a school on the Dalton Plan will change conditions for study. A flexible attitude towards these changes is necessary if the plan is to succeed. The teacher can no longer judge each pupil on the basis of the amount they learn in comparison with the other members of the class. Where pupils are studying individually, they must be judged individually. The teacher must appraise the contract as a whole. She cannot divide it into daily portions each to be marked good or bad. Until it is complete, her function is not to grade, but to give expert assistance and advice, so that subject matter is mastered and general progress is made according to the ability of the individual child. At the same time, there must be some daily check on the amount of work a pupil is doing. This is as essential for him as for his teacher. Each child is working on at least five assignments at a time. He must be able to know how far he has progressed with each. To give him the moral advantages that come from individual study, some device must be used by which he can check his own progress.

Miss Parkhurst has developed a system of record keeping for teachers and pupils that has worked efficiently in several American schools. A bulletin board hangs on the wall of each laboratory. On this the teacher posts the month's contract in outline for each grade and the weekly contract, in such form that the average pupil can take it and go ahead with his work. Each pupil has a contract card. There are different colors for different grades, so that an individual is easily placed in the laboratory.

The card is divided into vertical columns, one for each subject the pupil is studying. It is ruled in four rows, each indicating an amount corresponding to a week^s work on the contract, i.e., a square on the card then represents one week's work in a subject. These squares are subdivided into five rows, each row representing one day's work in the subject. Our fifth-grade pupil starts a new month of work by going to his geography room. He copies the outline of the month's assignment on the back of his card. He studies the week's assignment until he understands it, and determines what his first step should be. He may become absorbed in his work and remain in the geography laboratory for several hours. He has, of course, done more than one-fifth of the week's assignment in geography before he leaves. When he is ready to leave, he goes over what he has done and decides that he has finished say, three-fifths of the assignment. In the geography column on his card, he will draw a vertical line which covers the first three subdivisions of the square for the first week. In the next subject laboratory he goes to, he will follow the same procedure, crossing off the proportion of the week's work that he accomplishes in each subject. In order to keep track of which records are made each day, the number 1, 2 or 3, etc., corresponding to the day of the week is written on each day's line.

When the expression ^^time for a contract'* is used, it should be noted that this does not mean so many minutes allowed for each day's work. It means the amount of work done at any one time on the week^s assignment on the basis of a rough division of that assignment into five parts.

A pupil is not allowed to start a new contract in any one subject until he has finished all the subjects of the contract of the month before. This means that he must plan his distribution of time. A heedless child who follows his impulses may easily find the first month or two of a free program difficult. He will go to the laboratory of the subject which interests him most or which he finds easiest. Those portions of his contracts finished, he finds his difficult subjects still before him. Time will go slowly. He will be doubly conscious of his difficulties and he may spend more time than he ought in the shops or in reading in the library. The end of the month arrives and the rest of his class are starting interesting new assignments. He can not go on, because his difficult subject is not finished. With a real effort he gets down to work and finally completes the contract to the teacher ^s satisfaction. The next month he remembers his experience and plans his time better. He will start his history early in the month, do a little of it each day, and save some of the easy or more interesting work to give him mental rest and stimulation all through the month. Gradually, he will work out an arrangement of his time that is coordinated with his mental habits.

Rarely a pupil will be found whose habits and sense of responsibility are so poor that he Avill fail completely in organizing his time to complete his contracts. For such a pupil, it is a simple matter to make a program that requires him to report in certain laboratories at certain periods. Seeing his fellow-pupils working independently, the normal child will be stimulated to prove to his teachers that such special supervision is unnecessary, and after a few months, during which his program is adapted to his progress, he will be able to work as the others do. But this device should not be used, unless it seems necessary.

The lessons learned in having to plan his own time are as necessary to a child's education as the multiplication table or a legible handwriting. Ability to fit a definite job into a definite time, to plan a coming day, and to improve in the ability to organize one's work are large factors in adult success. Like all habits, they can not be established without practice. Miss Parkhurst believes that a child of nine or ten has enough experience to be ready to take the responsibility for his own school life to this extent. Modern education lays emphasis on the necessity for training that develops initiative, organizing ability, resourcefulness and critical judgment. The average class-room methods furnish comparatively few opportunities for the exercise of these qualities. In the old-fashioned class, they had almost no scope. Every school that preserves the single text-book, the daily lesson and recitations to measure information must rely on more or less artificial devices to develop them. Where pupils are free to organize their own time, these qualities can function as they do in real life. No matter how rigid the standards or how routine the task in life outside of school, responsibility for both accomplishment and method is on the individual. In a Dalton school, each pupil works and plays as a self-directed, self-disciplined individual, as he must do outside of school. The record cards are necessary to enable the inexperienced person to keep track of his work. They give him a picture of his work in such a concrete form that he can check, plan and evaluate from day to day and from month to month.