Organizing the smaller Sunday school; a study in grading

Preface

Will you do me the favor, kind reader, of glancing over this list of questions, which were once used at a Conference on the Small School ?

Does a small Sunday School interest children? How far is the growth of a mission influenced by its

Sunday School?

What type of Sunday School suffers the most

changes of administration?

In what respects is a small Sunday School essentially different from a large Sunday School. What is the usual ratio of small to large schools? What principles should determine how a small

school is divided into classes ?

Can boys and girls be kept together in small school

classes ?

Should pupils in a small school be "promoted" ? How long should a pupil in a small school remain

under the same teacher?

What is the best improvement in a small school ? Can graded lessons be used in a small school? How should teacher training be carried on ? Can a small school afford to have the best material ? What special efforts should be made to render a small

school attractive?

Must all the classes of a small school meet at the

same time?

How can you draw a picture of a small school? Can we have a diocesan system for small schools ? Who has written anything especially concerning

small schools?

If you find yourself truly concerned about any of these queries, then I may rightly urge you to read further in this little book, for in it I have striven to answer most of them, even though incompletely. If, however, your real interest has not been caught by any of them, this essay is not meant for you, and you had best pass it by — at least at present.

Should you persist, under this warning, in going forward, I owe it to you to say that Part II, as distinguished from Part I, is only for such as have patience to plod through details and to go beneath the surface of the subject. If you attempt to put Part I into practice, I believe you will find help in Part II. If your object is merely the simpler ideas, on paper, do not weary yourself by going beyond Part I. This much I would say to keep you my friend.

For the rest, I hope you share my belief that the Church must put forth its best efforts where conditions are most difficult. For the large Sunday School, under the usual conditions, there is plenty of guidance already in print, and many are ready to put suggestions in practice. For the small school few have spoken. My hope is to start a pioneer enterprise by means of this discussion.

There are many who hold that a small Sunday

vi

Preface

School is just a large Sunday School pared down, and in consequence they feel under no necessity to give especial attention to the small school; or even to acknowledge that it has peculiar problems of its own.

In answer to such a position it should suffice to ask, "Can the graded lessons be used in a school with five teachers?" Obviously it is impossible to have perhaps twelve courses in use by five teachers at the same time. The only possible answer to our question is, "No, the graded lessons cannot be used in a small school in the usual way" But this very admission that if used at all they must be handled in other than the usual fashion reveals that the small school has a problem of its own. In fact, it has many which are peculiar to itself.

My contention is that the small school can be conducted on what amounts to a graded plan, that it can be so organized as to make use of the graded lessons in its own way. If this be not true, then the small school must be shut out from taking advantage of the best products of the present era of Sunday School advance. Our best writers are engaged in producing graded work. Our best systems presuppose the principle of grading. Must the small school be content to use something else which is second best, and to remain organized under an antiquated theory ?

The main object, then, of this little book, is to show how the smaller schools can be so organized as to make use of the best graded material and run with the same efficiency as the larger schools. Let me express the hope that if I have not succeeded in indicating the right path along which this happy result may be obtained, I may at least stimulate someone else to dis-

vii cover and develop a solution. The Church must not rest satisfied until the solution is found.

Those who approach this essay from the point of view of the public schools will be disappointed that I have used the age-years rather than the grade nomenclature. This, however, seemed an expedient concession to such as were not in the habit of thinking in terms of public school grades.

Lester Bradner.

New York, April, 1917.

vm

Literature Dealing with the

Small School.

PART II. Details of the Plan

Chapter XII. Modifications of Standard

Cycles for Local Needs. 69

XIII. Some Illustrations of

Teacher Training. . . 77

XIV. Studying the Small School. 91 XV. Possible Lines of Special

Experiment. . . . . 108

IX

PART I The General Plan

CHAPTER I The Strategic Value of the Small School

Is the success of the small Sunday School a vital factor in the progress of the Church? But the small Sunday School, as a rule, is anything but a success. It lacks teachers, equipment, and enthusiasm. Its very smallness seems to be an obstacle to growth. Could we, on the other hand, give vitality and enthusiasm to the school, would it not grow, and would it not make the Church grow, too ?

Supposing all small schools could be made successful, consider what it would mean for the Church.

First of all, do not parishes usually increase the number of their youth more rapidly than that of their adults? And children bring their elders after them. Many a parish of to-day was started as a Sunday School yesterday. The successful school is the very best feeder which a parish can have, the surest promise of a larger congregation. Moreover, the message of a Church, all things considered, is best presented through its handling of child life. If, according to our Lord's precept, "by their fruits ye shall know them," we look for results in life as a testimony, the surest attainment of parochial results in life is not among adults, where impressions are hard to produce, but in child-life, where all is plastic. And the fruits of religion in childhood and youth are a mighty and eloquent sermon to mature life. Any religious body represented in a community by a strong, efficient Sunday School is bound to win adherents and exert influence, no matter what the size of the school may be.

Moreover, we tend to forget that schools of less than one hundred pupils far outnumber the schools of over that number. It would surprise most people to learn that there are more schools in the diocese of New York of under 100 pupils than of 100 and over, yet such was very recently the case. Even in such an old established diocese as Rhode Island, forty-five per cent. (29 out of 65) of the schools in 1915 were under 100 pupils, and comprised seven per cent, of the total pupils. In Eastern Oklahoma (missionary diocese) in 1915 the small schools numbered 22 out of a total of 24, and comprised about seventy-five per cent, of the total pupils.

The District Policy for Missionary Administration

All this, if true, has an important bearing on the domestic missionary policy of the Church. In many parts of the country we are represented by chains of weak and struggling mission stations. What is their promise for the future ? It may be clearly judged, as a rule, from the conditions obtaining in the Sunday schools belonging to those same missions. Are these schools weak and helpless ? Then it will be many years before the Church will gain a hold in that section of the country. Are they strong and vigorous? Then there is hope for the future of the Church in that

The Strategic Value of the Small School

locality. The condition of the Sunday School is an index. Its welfare is strategic.

Consider again the plight of an archdeacon in charge of a number of small schools. Must each of them be organized and managed on a separate plan, and all of them be weak, in addition? If so, his largest task is really not to see that there are clergy enough to hold services, but to secure sufficient number of workers to keep the Sunday Schools running. Too often each frequent change of a missionary means a change of Sunday School policy, and the absence of a clergyman results in the breakdown of the school. Suppose, on the contrary, that each Sunday School in the archdeaconry is organized upon the same standard plan, with the same system of work, and supervised by the archdeacon, not therefore totally dependent upon the missionary sent to hold services. Then it may be possible for the archdeacon to train a corps of workers to conduct the Sunday Schools of his district according to this uniform plan, to fill vacancies on call, and to keep the system and the school moving on, independent of clerical change in any one mission station. Is there any question but that such a system would be a building force for the Church in his district?

The Possibility of Standard Units

Our need, not merely in an archdeaconry, but the whole Church over, is for a simple, workable, effective plan for the small school, sufficiently elastic to admit of local adaptation, yet sufficiently uniform to allow all small schools to operate upon a single, well-understood system, for which lay men and women could be trained in considerable numbers.

This suggests at once a system with certain standard units — each applied under similar circumstances, with well-understood types of modification to meet local needs. It is the purpose of this pamphlet to show that such a system can be devised and is practicable.

CHAPTER II Analyzing the Situation in a Small School

The Weak Spot

Why is the small Sunday School so often uninteresting and inefficient? Some attribute it to the teachers, some to the lessons, some to the mere fact of its smallness. But the crucial point is whether the school elicits the interest of the child. Nobody can make an enthusiastic school out of uninterested children. Interest, however, is not the result of numbers, but the cause of them. Leaders who will employ right methods will create interest whether the school numbers ten or a hundred. The problem of interesting the child in the small school is primarily a question of the number and capability of teachers. Lessons are a secondary consideration.

All things considered, the weakest spot in the small school is probably its teaching force. There may be devotion, and yet no capability. There may be teachers, and yet they may lack insight.

That inferior teachers are left in charge is not seldom due to frequent changes of administration. The minister in charge of a small parish is apt not to be a fixture. He is seeking a larger field and finds it, moving on after a brief pastorate. His stay is not long enough to enable him to look ahead. He scarcely understands the present before he is gone. He has hardly had time to begin training teachers against future need. He has perhaps not even discovered the want of capacity among the existing staff. Not infrequently, the whole conduct of the school is changed with each new incumbent. New material is introduced, new aims are established, teachers are confused, discouraged. They drop out if they can, and the vacancy is filled by the first person who can be prevailed upon to take up the burden. Experience with all its values is lost. The rapid changes in clerical control have worked serious harm. Were a standard plan, instead of an individual experiment, in operation, the losses in the teaching force would certainly be less, and its gains might be greater. It is quite natural that the small Sunday School should be weak in teachers. This being the case, however, our remedy lies in giving greater attention to the situation.

How to Measure Small Schools

The teacher is not merely the key to improvement but the real measure of the small school. One may ask what is a small school, and the answer would probably be that a small Sunday School is one which has twenty, or forty, or seventy-five pupils. We ought to say, a small Sunday School is one which has three teachers, or four teachers, or six teachers, or eight teachers. In other words, our measurements should be in terms of teachers, not pupils, because it is the supply of teachers, as well as their quality, which determines, in a very

Analyzing the Situation in a Small School

large degree, the strength of the school. There was once a small school which started with five teachers and five pupils. But it grew rapidly because there was teaching power present, while many schools which start with twenty pupils and two teachers do not grow, because the teaching power of the school is low,

The Division into Classes

Consider the matter in diagram form. There is a certain period in the life of each pupil which it is the purpose of the Sunday School by all means to cover with definite and systematic religious teaching. This period, we may say, is roughly from five to eighteen years of age.

5— r 14 Years of Each Child's Life .—18

Let us admit that, in passing through this period, the child needs to be taught a considerable number of different subjects, in order to equip him thoroughly for his life as a Christian and Churchman. It is a mistake to suppose that every teacher must move with a single group of pupils all the way through this sequence of subjects. It is far more effective to divide this period of years among such teachers as are available, giving each the chance to become more efficient in the teaching of the particular period to which he is assigned. We may then assume that this line of 14 years will be broken by as many teachers as the small school can command, which, of course, is not many. Our line would then appear in this form:

5 — | Teacher A | Teacher B| Teacher C| Teacher D| Teacher E. — 18

The next question is, what years of this age line shall be assigned to the different teachers available. The answer is determined principally by the number of teachers, but there perhaps is a certain number necessary for the effective administration. It may be that a school will have to be administered by two persons because no more can be secured, and therefore one teacher must take the group of ages, say, from 5 to 10, and the other the remaining group. This, of course, is unfortunate, and ineffective from the pedagogical point of view. Were there five persons capable of teaching, the fourteen years included might be divided among them mostly in threes.

Let it be understood that in speaking here and elsewhere of ages the writer understands that the figure used is approximate; the corresponding public school grade may be substituted for the age figure without affecting the argument or the plan.

The main question, then, in grouping of pupils in a small school is the number of possible teachers, or, in other words, the number of necessary divisions. Authorities agree that the greatest efficiency would be obtained if each year could be handled by itself. This being plainly impossible in a small school, we must reach the nearest possible adjustment to the ideal. The principle, however, is plain. The teacher remains in charge of the same group of ages; the pupils move from teacher to teacher at certain ages.

Evidently then, the determining factor in a small school is not the number of pupils, whether twenty, fifty, or eighty, but the question of the number of teachers available to put in charge of the groups. Let

Analyzing the Situation in a Small School

us then agree that the smaller schools shall be spoken of as five-teacher schools, seven-teacher schools, or nineteacher schools, as the case may be. And let us bring ourselves into the habit of thinking of all smaller schools in terms of teachers instead of terms of pupils.

CHAPTER III Problems of Grouping Keeping the Sexes Together

We have become so accustomed to separating the sexes in all Sunday School classes (above the Primary, at least) that there is a natural tendency to consider this imperative. In most public education, however, there is no separation of sex by classes. Since the application of religious truth is often made by means of concrete illustrations to the circumstances in which pupils live, and to their more intimate experiences, it may be desirable, in a general way, to teach the sexes separately. But the advantages are not sufficient to outweigh the consequent shortage of teachers in a small school. The point at which it is more important to separate the sexes, provided plenty of teachers can be had, is the range of 13 to 15 years of age. The next most important point is from 10 to 12. More advantage can be gained by making the division of sexes in these years than either earlier or later. But where rigid economy of teachers is a necessity it is better to keep the sexes together than to lengthen the stretch of ages in one class.

When the question is raised as to how a group of

Problems of Grouping

fifteen or twenty children, boys and girls, from 10 to 15 years of age, should be divided between only two teachers, the answer has generally been, in practice, that one teacher, A, should take the boys, and another teacher, B, the girls. Or in diagram form :

Division

Jeacher A.

Jeacher B.

Figure 1 — Usual Method of Dividing the Sexes.

On the other hand, the following division which disregards the sex is far more advantageous :

Teacher A. Jeacher B.

Figure 2 — Better Division — Sexes Together.

The Promotion of Pupils

When it is once determined how many teachers are available for the small school, and which age-years or grades each teacher shall cover, it is understood that every child shall step forward into the age or grade group to which he belongs at the beginning of each new school year. John, for instance, being nine years old and in grade IV of the public school, is in the Sunday School class which Miss B teaches and which includes children of 7, 8, and 9. But in the early summer he becomes 10 years old, or is promoted in the public school to grade V. When Sunday School reopens in September, John should enter the next higher Sunday School class, which may be Miss C's, and may include children of 10, 11, and 12 years.

If Mary, however, being ten, or in grade V, is under Miss C in Sunday School, she is not promoted to Miss D's class the following year, but stays with Miss until she is 13, or in grade VII. In other words, the only pupils to be promoted in any particular year are those who cross the age or grade line of their group into the age or grade of the next higher group.

In practice, this means that Miss B will always have in her group all the 7, 8, and 9-year-olds (or grades II, III, and IV) and Miss C will always have children of the next three ages or grades. Not every child will be promoted every year.

CHAPTER IV The Cycle Plan as a Solution

If the number of ages or grades assigned to any one teacher depends upon the number of teachers available for the whole school, it is evident that a number of different types of teaching organization will be necessary. Can these be so arranged as to form a well-understood system, generally applicable and easy "to manage? It is our belief that such a system is possible and not difficult of comprehension, that it will add greatly to the efficiency, the unification, and the progress of all Sunday School work. The key to this system lies in what we call the cycle plan of organization.

Let us call any group of ages or grades permanently assigned to one teacher a cycle. This means that if Miss B has ages 7, 8, and 9, she keeps to this same age series. She teaches a three-year cycle over and over. If Miss C has only ages 10 and 11, and teaches over and over again within this range, she has a two-year cycle. Miss B teaches three subjects in succession — one each year — and then goes back to repeat. Miss C teaches two subjects in succession, one each year, and then goes back. We may illustrate this as follows :

Organizing the Smaller Sunday School \*i year- \* >W

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Figure 3

Figure 4

A. The Three- Year Cycle

It is generally felt that the largest number of years that can be included in one group, without serious detriment to at least some pupils in the group, is three years. Imagine, for instance, a group of children varying in age through the space of five different age years. Supposing the group contained children of 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 years, what kind of a course shall the teacher be set to teach ? Evidently, whatever be chosen and whatever method of teaching be applied, there will be a misfit at one end of the line or the other; either the 10-year-old will be favored in the presentation, in which case the 14-year-old will certainly not receive his due, educationally speaking; or the presentation will be in accord with the age of 13-14 and the 10-year-olds will suffer correspondingly. Many feel that an easy solution can be had by advising the teacher to strike an average and teach the 12-year-olds, but this in effect is to injure both the 10-year-olds and the 14-year-olds from the pedagogical point of view. It is plain that we cannot wisely handle so many years at once. What is the limit

The Cycle Plan as a Solution

in this respect? A year by itself is the ideal, as we have stated above. The necessity of the school turns us back from this ideal. How far shall we, under ordinary circumstances, allow ourselves to diverge from this? Surely not further than to put three years in a group. Even this is far from satisfactory, yet it is within the limits of most small school capacities.

The three-year-cycle plan means, then, that Teacher B will teach in 1917 a certain course which we may call Course I. In 1918 Teacher B will teach Course II, in 1919 Teacher B will teach Course III, in 1920 the return will be made to Course I, and this round will be kept up. Meantime there come into the group, taught by Teacher B, at the beginning of every year, the 7-year-olds promoted from a lower cycle. At the close of each year Teacher B will promote from her group the 9-year-olds to the succeeding cycle. This means that Teacher B will perhaps always have in the group 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and 9-year-olds, no matter whether the subject taught may happen to be Course I, or Course II, or Course III.

It is a just criticism upon the Three- Year Cycle that if Course III is good for 9-year-olds it can hardly be good for 7-year-olds, and that if Course I is good for 7-year-olds, conversely it is less valuable for 9 -year-olds. This we must admit. It is part of the misfortune of a school which by reason of circumstances has so few teachers as to make the three-year-cycle imperative. Some adjustment can be gained by the modification described on pp. 20-22, but this is not a complete remedy. Unquestionably, it is worth all our effort to avoid the three-year cycle in favor of a shorter cycle if possible.

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Yet it is not always possible, and we must face conditions as they are. The fact is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of schools throughout the Church which seem unable to secure more than four or five teachers.

If, now, our small school runs on the three-year-cycle plan, with pupils from 4 to 18 years of age, it may be represented as in Figure 5.

We may call this the Standard Plan for a Three- Year- Cycle School. It means that the school is a "five-teacher" school. The number of pupils in it is not a matter of importance, so far as the classification or operation of the school goes. If there were but three pupils to a teacher the whole school would number fifteen, obviously, but if each teacher averaged ten pupils the school could carry fifty pupils under this organization.

There is little question as to what constitutes the most important improvement for a small school. It is the addition of another teacher to the staff. Every time a teacher is added, the age groups, by the use of this one more teacher, are shortened, and therefore made more advantageous to the pupils contained in each of them. One new teacher may in this way

The Cycle Plan as a Solution

work a benefit not merely to the class put in charge of that teacher but to the classes above and below. Superintendents of small schools would do well to remember how greatly their care in discovering or creating new teachers will be rewarded in these ways.

B. The Two-Year Cycle

Realizing, then, the disadvantages of the three-year cycle and supposing that teachers are more plentiful, let us organize our school on the two-year-cycle plan, in which Teacher a will be assigned to children of 4 and 5, Teacher h to those of 6 and 7, Teacher c to 8 and 9, and so on. In this arrangement the cycle will include but two courses; that is, Teacher a will teach in 1917 Course I, and in 1918 Course II. The pupil will spend but two years, therefore, in Teacher a's class, going on at the end of that time to the class of Teacher &, who has in one year Course III, and in another year Course IV. This two-year-cycle plan is far more advantageous from the pedagogical point of view. It is true that the sequence of any two courses may be reversed for those pupils who enter as the second year is begun, but, on the whole, the loss occasioned by teaching two different extremes of age is much less than in the Three- Year Cycle. In this case our school will appear as in Figure 6.

Promotions will take place every two years, and we may, perhaps, hold our pupils up to nineteen years. This will be a Standard Two-Tear-Cycle School of the "eight-teacher" type. The capacity of the two-year-cycle school would run from sixteen pupils up to eighty or ninety (or even a hundred) pupils. Any improvement beyond the two-year-cycle would be toward the fully graded school (which might typically be called the One- Year- Cycle School).

Describing the Standard Types v

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We have now established two standard or normal types of small Sunday Schools, the three-year-cycle type with five teachers, and the two-year-cycle type with eight teachers. Let us describe these schools by using capital letters for the three-year cycle and small letters for the two-year cycle. Then A, B, C, D, E will represent the five-teacher three-year cycle school, and a, h, c, d, e, f, g, h, the eight-teacher two-year-cycle school. Hereafter in this discussion these standard schools, and the teachers in them, will always be described by the corre^ sponding letters, capital or small.

Mixing the Types in the Same School

We have said above that the shorter the cycle the better the adjustment of the teaching to the pupil. Supposing, then, that the superintendent of an A, B, C, D, E school, anxious for efficiency, is able to discover or train one or two additional teachers, but not enough to change his school to the full two-year-cycle plan (which would mean at least three more),

The Cycle Plan as a Solution

can he secure any of the advantages of the two-year plan? Certainly he can. A mixture of types in the same school is entirely possible, and easy to arrange. It is evident that any two-year cycles may be resolved into three two-year cycles by the addition of one more teacher. Consider, for instance, cycles C (ages 10, 11, 12) and D (ages 13, 14, 15)—

Figure 7 — Illustration of Resolving Cycles.

Teacher C becomes d, by keeping only the 10- and 11- year-olds. Teacher D likewise becomes /, by keeping the 14- and 15-year-olds. The new teacher, e, takes the 12-year-olds from C and the 13-year-olds from D and forms the new two-year cycle.

The rest of the school proceeds as before on the three-year-cycle plan. This results in a school of mixed type, not so easy to define in words, but perfectly and clearly discernible in the formula A, B, d, e, /, E. This type, with six teachers, is a very satisfactory and practical way of handling a group of 45 up to 65 or even 70 pupils.

It is easy to see that indefinite variations of this sort may be made to fit the convenience of the various schools, and yet, so long as the age limits and cycle structure are preserved, the standard of organization in the school could easily be understood and its formula interpreted with a moment's notice. It would be perfectly possible to catalogue, by means of the formula, hundreds of small schools according to their types, and to see at a glance which type was the more frequent, or which schools were run on exactly the same type.