Recordings

Forest Conservation. The Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, has produced a second series of six recorded programs emphasizing the importance of forest conservation. The staff of New York City's Board of Education Station WNYE served as counsellors in the preparation of script material and in the production of the dramatized programs. A teacher's manual accompanies the records. Scripts for this series, as well as for the first six programs which were produced more than a year ago, likewise are available. Recorded on 16-inch discs, they require playback equipment having turntable speed of 33 r. p. m. Recordings may be borrowed for the customary 2-weeks loan period from the Script and Transcription Exchange, Office of Education, Federal Security Federal Security Agency. "Voice of America.” "This is the Voice of America" is the title of a recorded program prepared especially for distribution through the Script and Transcription Exchange by the Department of State. It is intended to enlighten interested listeners of high-school age and above about some of the basic facts concerning the purpose and method of operation of the "Voice of America." Recorded at 33 r. p. m. Student Government. Now available is a recording of a simulated broadcast from a high-school student council meeting in which is demonstrated the techniques of a well-organized council as it deals with problems of mutual interest to students, high school administrators, and teachers. It is titled "Roots of Student Government." The script was written by Ellsworth Tompkins. Secondary Education Specialist, U. S. Office of Education, and recorded by the Philadelphia Radio Workshop over Station KYW. Recording was done at 33 r. p. m. Requests for copies to be loaned should be addressed to the Script and Transcription Exchange.

United Nations Day. "No Other Road" is the title of a 30-minute program produced by the British Broadcasting Co. and broadcast September 5, 1948, as a prelude to the Third General Assembly of the United Na

tions in Paris. The program deals with the progress achieved by the United Nations in political, economic, and social fields and includes graphic illustrations of the work of some of the special UN agencies. It is a compellingly dramatic presentation of authentic information which might well be used for a special United Nations Day

program.

"UNESCO World Review." A radio script bearing this title is issued by UNESCO in Paris and is distributed weekly in this country by the U. S. National Commission. Purpose of the review is to promote a type of understanding among peoples that will lead to peace. Its method is to highlight in news-reporter fashion, constructive progress and cooperation in the educational, scientific, and cultural fields. Copies are available on request to Commission headquarters in the Department of State.

Films

Health Films. Eleven motion pictures, produced in 1944-45 by Walt Disney for the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and withdrawn with the termination of the CIAA at the end of 1945, are now available from the Institute of Inter-American Affairs. Nine of the films deal with health subjects, one portrays the history of corn, and one is a travelogue on the Amazon River country.

All of the 11 motion pictures are 16-mm. sound color films and are available with English, Portuguese, or Spanish narrations. Prints can be purchased from the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, 499 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington 25, D. C. Write to the Institute for descriptions, prices, and a purchase application form. Titles are: The Amazon Awakens, Cleanliness Brings Health, Defense Against Invasion, Grain That Built a Hemisphere, How Disease Travels, The Human Body, Infant Care, Tuberculosis, Water-Friend or Enemy? What Is Disease? Winged Scourge.

On Diabetes. A common-sense attitude toward diabetes is emphasized in a new U. S. Public Health Service motion picture, The Story of Wendy Hill. Wendy learns

she has diabetes and both she and her husband are extremely disturbed, but their fears are quieted by their doctor. Placed on insulin and a special diet, Wendy leads a healthy, normal life. Prints of this film, which is 16-mm. sound, color, and runs 19 minutes, may be borrowed from State Health Departments and can be purchased from Castle Films, 1445 Park Avenue, New York 29, N. Y.

A Career.

Medicine as a career is por

trayed in the State Department film Journey Into Medicine, recently released for educational use in the United States through the U. S. Public Health Service. The film follows a single student through medical school, internship, further study in pedi atrics and finally his entrance into public health... his journey into medicine. Prints of Journey Into Medicine, 16-mm. sound, black-and-white, 39 minutes, may be borrowed from the Regional Office of the U. S. Public Health Service and can be purchased from Castle Films.

An Ohio Town. The life and people of a typical American community-Mount Vernon, Ohio—are portrayed in a series of five films originally produced by Julien Bryan for the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and now available, through the cooperative efforts of the Department of State and the U. S. Office of Education, for noncommercial, educational use within the United States. Titles are: Ohio Town (19 minutes), The County Agent (17 minutes), The Doctor (14 minutes), The Mechanic (14 minutes), The School (21 minutes). Prints of the films, 16-mm. sound, black-and-white, can be purchased from Castle Films or rented from many educational film libraries. Neither the Depart ment of State nor the U. S. Office of Education lends these films.

Atomic Energy Education RHODE ISLAND College of Education is conducting during the fall semester an inservice workshop in atomic energy education. The course carries credit for the Master's degree. Sessions are held twice a week for 15 weeks, beginning September 28.

Nation. We hope that widespread interest will result in more support for local committees now working for the improvement of their schools, and we also hope that more such local committees will be formed.

Our Commission is made up of laymen, for we want to exemplify the responsibility laymen have to join the professional educators in working for better schools. Eventually we will expand our present membership of 28 to 60. None of our members are professionally connected with education, religion, or politics. They come

izations by setting up a clearinghouse of information to enable one to find out what others are doing. Although we are fully conscious of the fact that no two committees face exactly similar situations, we feel that each will be able to profit from the experience of others.

To encourage the formation of additional such groups, we are cooperating with the Advertising Council in its present campaign to bring the problems faced by the public schools to the attention of the public. Advertisements dramatizing the necessity to

THE members of the National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools are, besides Mr. Larsen: JAMES F. BROWNLEE, former deputy director of the OPA, vicechairman; JOHN A. STEVENSON, president of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co., treasurer; LEO PERLIS, director of the National CIO Community Services Committee, secretary; Mrs. BARRY BINGHAM, vice president, Louisville (Ky.) CourierJournal and Times; STUART BRADLEY, member of the executive board, Louisiana Education Foundation, New Orleans; JOHN COWLES, president, The Minneapolis Star and Tribune; EDWARD R. EASTMAN, president and editor, American Agriculturist, Ithaca, N. Y.; GEORGE GALLUP, director, American Institute of Public Opinion; Mrs. BRUCE GOULD, editor, Ladies' Home Journal; LESTER B. GRANGER, executive director, National Urban League; RALPH A. HAYWARD, president, Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Co., Parchment, Mich.; Robert Heller, Robert Heller & Associates, Inc., Cleveland; PALMER HOYT, editor and publisher, The Denver Post; Mrs. SAMUEL A. LEWISOHN, chairman, Board of Trustees, New York Public Education Association; WALTER LIPPMANN, columnist, Washington, D. C.; ROBERT LITTELL, senior editor, The Reader's Digest; STANLEY MARCUS, executive vice president, Neiman-Marcus Company, Dallas, Tex.; JAMES G. K. MCCLURE, president, Farmers' Federation, Inc., Asheville, N. C.; GEORGE HOUK MEAD, honorary chairman of the board, The Mead Corporation, Dayton, Ohio; Mrs. EUGENE MEYER, The Washington (D. C.) Post; RAYMOND RUBICAM, cofounder of Young and Rubicam, Inc. (N. Y.), Scottsdale, Ariz.; BEARDSLEY RUML, New York; HARRY SCHERMAN, president, Book-of-the-Month Club; Louis B. SELTZER, editor, Cleveland Press; RICHARD JOYCE SMITH, partner in law firm of Whitman, Ransom, Coulson & Goetz, New York; CHARLES ALLEN THOMAS, executive vice president, Montsanto Chemical Company, St. Louis; and Judge CHARLES E. WYSANSKI, Jr., U. S. District Judge for Massachusetts, Boston.

from many sections of the Nation. They reflect many different kinds of experience and many points of view.

We, members of the Commission, do not pose as experts on school affairs-like all laymen, we have to find out what the problems are and what solutions to work for. We will formulate our program slowly, building each new project on the experience gained in previous ones.

We are beginning by learning all we can about local citizens' committees which have made substantial contributions toward the improvement of their schools. We hope to be of assistance to such organ*See pages 24 and 25 for further information

As the Commission's program develops, it plans a series of studies dealing with various problems, both local and national, confronting public education in this country. All our current plans center, however, on the key problem-that of inspiring the broad citizen interest in the schools which we believe is so necessary for any largescale improvement.

on how this Commission and other national groups are cooperating in the "Better Schools Campaign."

From the Printed Page

"HIGHLIGHTED in this report of the Office of Education are significant facts about American education-information which relates to school and college programs in every State as they touch the lives of children and adults alike."

Rall I. Grigsby, Acting Commissioner of Education, in Annual Report of the Federal Security Agency, Office of Education, 1948, price 25 cents.

"THE PERCENTAGE of the total school enrollment in high school (the holding power) is one measure of the efficiency of administration of the educational system in

a State. The average for the Nation is 24.1 percent."

-David T. Blose, Associate Specialist in Educational Statistics, in Statistics of State School Systems, 1945-46, Chapter II, Biennial Survey of Education, 1944-46, price 25

cents.

"IT HAS BEEN roughly and conservatively estimated that in the United States there are between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 children of school age who are so exceptional as to need some special adjustment in their school programs if they are to attain optimum development. The classification 'exceptional' includes the various types of physically handicapped, of which crippled children are a major group, the socially handicapped and emotionally disturbed, the mentally handicapped, and the mentally gifted."

-Romaine P. Mackie, Specialist for Schools for the Physically Handicapped, in Leaflet No. 80, Education of Crippled Children in the United States, price 10 cents.

HE PHILOSOPHY behind Life Adjustment Education is not new. For years, especially in the elementary schools, we have talked about serving "all the children of all the people." We have emphasized teaching in terms of individual needs and interest. We have said education is life.

Even in the secondary schools the basic emphasis of Life Adjustment Education has long been discussed under such themes as teaching the common learnings, functionalizing the high-school subjects, extending general education and delaying specialization, and developing a pupil-centered, experience-centered, or life-centered school.

Much has been said and written in recent years about bringing the life and the problems of the community into the high schools and using its various resources for edu cational purposes. Some have urged that the high school test all parts of its program against the very simple and pragmatic criterion of "teaching youth to do better those desirable things they will do anyway." Others have, simplified the matter even further by suggesting that we teach in terms of "what comes naturally." Unmistakable Challenge

The challenge to the high school seems unmistakable. Nation-wide statistics tell us that, despite the progress made, the senior high school fails entirely to reach about 30 percent of the youth, and that it loses about 30 percent more of its students before graduation.

In recent years the number of high-school students reaching the senior year has increased somewhat. This can be ascribed to the return of many veterans to their highschool studies. Entrance figures have fallen slightly, however.

Granting that certain factors inaccessibility, lack of funds the pupils believe necessary to meet the costs of attendance, need or desire to supplement the family income, carelessness in dealing with labor and attendance provisions-account for many of the approximately 60 percent who now fail to reach high school or complete high-school study, educators seem to agree that any block to high-school attendance can be overcome if there is an all-impelling

interest on the part of students and their parents in doing so.

The problem of Life Adjustment Education, therefore, comes down to this:

1. Can we develop curriculums and other high-school activities which will have such meaning, value, and appeal as to attract and retain all youth of high-school age, and especially those not now in school?

2. Can we produce an administrative and instructional climate which will be conducive to the happy and successful growth of all youth, and especially to those now lost by our schools?

3. Can we develop positive and recurrent opportunities for the high-school staff, the students, and their parents to study, evaluate, and plan so that their high-school program will better serve the real needs of youth today and tomorrow rather than the traditional academic needs which now so largely rule the situation?

Increasingly, leaders in education are thinking, planning, and organizing their secondary schools so as to place greater emphasis on Life Adjustment Education for Every Youth. Some of these leaders have for years been busily at work to help this part of the school system reformulate its governing philosophy, reexamine its objectives, and reorganize its programs. Under such leadership many high schools have progressed a long way toward the development of programs of study and other educational services which are basically meaningful to each participating pupil and to the enrichment of his daily living.

Academic Emphasis

Other high schools continue to be dominated largely by the desire to select and educate youth for success in college, regardless of the few destined for higher education or the many in need of functional learnings. Their emphasis is primarily upon such academic objectives as mastery of college preparatory subjects, textbook assignment and study, deferred learning values, the achievement and maintenance of accreditment standards, the administration of tests, ruthless grading against scholastic tests, ruthless grading against scholastic norms, and elimination of those regarded as "unfit."

Insofar as such high schools have recog

nized the needs of pupils for practical types of education, they have done so chiefly by adding a limited number of vocational courses. Pupils unable to benefit from either of these types of instruction are left to flounder or to leave the schools as soon as the compulsory education laws will permit.

Certain administrative problems or "road blocks" to Life Adjustment Education seem to emerge. These problems could be spelled out in some detail. Indeed, they have been quite fully spelled out in a number of Office of Education reports, conferences, and workshops on Life Adjustment Education primarily concerned with giving specificity to problems, principles, and projected solutions of Life Adjustment Education. No Ready-Made Solutions

To achieve the desired results, the attack It is hard to must be a cooperative one. say, therefore, which of the basic problems involved belong primarily to the school administrator and which depend upon the interrelationships of pupils and teachers, or require parent, professional organization, guidance officer, or other assistance.

Certain "road blocks" involving administrative policies and procedures will have to be removed, however, before much real progress can be made either in the classroom or in the community. These "road blocks" are deep-seated in our traditions. They are complicated in character. I shall point out a few of them for which there are no ready-made solutions. These must be forged in the heat of much careful study, numerous discussions, many carefully controlled experiments, and some real soul searching into deeply held traditions and concepts, some of them bordering on prejudices. Several "road blocks" are:

1. The Carnegie unit, with all that this implies in the way of marks, passing and failing grades, pupil cataloging, pupil expulsion, retardation and repetition of courses, bluffing, teacher's pets, teacher's scapegoats, becomes obsolete if we take seriously the challenge to keep in school all youth of high-school age and to give all of them an opportunity to grow and to develop their assets to the maximum.

We must shift the emphasis of student

evaluation and appraisal from the neutral and often negative and destructive process of grading, selecting, labeling, and elimi nating pupils to a positive process of discovering and developing whatever latent talents, capacities, interests, and other assets they may possess.

2. The traditional accreditment of high schools on the old quantitative and collegepreparatory bases, already extensively under fire, must be entirely abandoned. The newer evaluative criteria produced by the Cooperative Study stressing personal, local, functional, and democratic objectives must become operative everywhere. The greater

accumulation by the pupil of Carnegie units, academic marks, and scholastic standing is so close that any changes in one will also require changes in the other.

4. The fixed curriculum with its constants and variables, its required and elective courses, its single and multiple form, its fusion and core aspects, all constitute problems to which the school administrator and his staff must address themselves. Questions for Administrators What of credit and noncredit courses? What of school-work programs? (Continued on page 22)

THE FOLLOWING basic sources setting forth the essential features and processes of Life Adjustment Education are reviewed by Walter H. Gaumnitz:

1. The National Association of Secondary-School Principals came out in 1936 with a fundamental blueprint of modern secondary education in its "Issues of Secondary Education"; in 1939 it published "That All May Learn," in 1944 "Planning for American Youth," in 1947 "The Imperative Needs of Youth of Secondary School Age," and in 1948 "Secondary Education Programs for Improved Living.”

2. The American Council on Education through its American Youth Commission published several documents showing the problems of youth and the high-school's failure to deal with these problems. In 1940 the Council published "What the High Schools Ought To Teach"; in 1942 it followed with "Youth and the Future" and other publications exemplifying many concepts of Life Adjustment Ed

ucation.

3. The Educational Policies Commission also made several salient contributions to the idea of Life Adjustment Education when in 1938 it brought out "The Purposes of Education in American Democracy,” in 1940 "Education and Economic Well-Being" and "Learning the Ways of Democracy," and in 1944 it published the epoch-making volume "Education for All American Youth."

4. To any casual list of sources setting forth recent blueprints for improvements in secondary education there would have to be added "The Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards" made in the middle thirties, later revised and now again under revision, Spaulding's "High School and

Life" published in 1940, "The Story of the Eight-Year Study" of 1942, the Harvard Report on "General Education in a Free Society" published in 1945, and "Vocational Education in the Years Ahead" published by the Office of Education in 1947.

"But these important reports, which have been generally known in educational circles," Mr. Gaumnitz points out, "did not bring about a Nationwide plan of action. Neither did they envisage an organization which would spark plug a specific program designed to bring about the desired improvements in secondary education. Of course, much progress resulted from these efforts, but it was at best sporadic. So far as the major "road blocks" were concerned, these too often remained unaffected. This was largely the situation when in 1945 leaders in Vocational Education met in Washington to consider "Vocational Education in the Years Ahead." It was this conference that produced and adopted the "Prosser Resolution" and sent it to the Commissioner of Education with the request that specific action be instituted. The following roughly approximates the pronouncements and steps stipulated by this resolution:

1. We believe that with the aid of the report just adopted our secondary schools will be better able to prepare some 20 percent of the youth of secondary school age for the skilled occupations and that they will improve their offerings for another 20 percent preparing for entrance and success in college;

2. We believe that about 60 percent of the youth do not now receive the life-adjustment training they need and to which as American citizens they are entitled;

3. We believe that school administrators and leaders in vocational education can jointly formulate the educational programs needed by these neglected youth; and

4. We call upon the Commissioner of Education to initiate such action as may be necessary to bring about improvements which will more realistically serve all youth of secondaryschool age.

"The various regional and national conferences of educational leaders which soon grew out of this resolution, as well as the Life Adjustment Commission appointed late in 1947," according to Mr. Gaumnitz, "adhered strictly to the proposition (1) that the problem be attacked jointly by the school administrators and leaders in vocational education, and (2) that their efforts be centered chiefly upon the youth now poorly served or not served at all by most of the high schools. The five regional conferences called covered the Nation during the calendar year 1946. They were followed by a national conference held in May of 1947. This Chicago conference worked out a far-reaching program of action; it recommended a Commission to determine policy and give leadership. The Office of Education was made the clearinghouse for the activities proposed and given the task of developing a program of implementation. In keeping of these assignments, a notable list of materials has been published; help has been given to a large number of workshops and conferences; consultative services have been provided in working out new programs and in launching and coordinating experiments. Appraisal techniques are being developed and the work of the Commission is being facilitated."

SCHOOL LIFE is pleased to present this article on atomic-energy study at Keene High School, Keene, N. H. The article is based upon information furnished originally to the Atomic Energy Commission by Mr. Arthur Houston, Head of the Science Department at Keene High School, to whom credit must be given for this effective atomic-energy educational program. Both L. O. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools at Keene, and Edward A. Sillari, Headmaster, lent fullest cooperation in helping make the Keene program a success. Much credit also goes to Miss Constance Brennan, Head of the Art Department at Keene High School, Miss Mildred Turner, the student who coordinated the study, and other Keene educators, laymen, and students.

Shortly after World War II there was a recognition at Keene of the need for atomic energy education, but how much and what shape it should take had to be decided. As information was collected, two decisions were made that some sort of atomic energy study must be included in the regular physics course, and that, if necessary, some of the old course would have to be transferred to other science courses or omitted entirely to make room for the new, vital, and stimulating material.

But information on atomic research was not easy to find. The Smythe report was welcomed. Science publications and other magazines were scanned for atomic energy articles or references. Each pupil was given a copy of "The World Within the Atom" prepared by The Westinghouse Company. Nuclear physics charts were ob tained from the same source for their use. A guide sheet pointing out what should be learned from "Adventure Inside the Atom," a comic presentation of the General Electric Company, helped the pupils learn fundamental facts. A book, by Wesley Stout, titled "Secret" and published by the Chrysler Corporation also proved useful.

What to teach? How to teach it? The answers, based upon the type and content of information available, boiled down to this teaching outline:

1. History of atomic research. 2. Structure of the atom.

8. The story of the atomic bomb. 9. Artificial transmutation. 10. Radioactivity detection.

11. Applications in war, medicine, power, heating, and agriculture.

12. The necessity for universal understanding of atomic energy.

How to teach the program with understanding? Using the printed page was not in itself sufficient. High-school pupils needed to translate abstractions in the literature into concrete and meaningful ideas.

An atomic energy exhibit from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on display at Boston was viewed with interest by the pupils. They studied the Westinghouse charts, attended a lecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology given by Dr. Lyle B. Borst, chairman, Nuclear Reactor Project, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The high school art department under Miss Constance Brennan made the study of atomic energy a cooperative project. More charts were needed. They had to be neat, simple, and in quantity. The art depart ment furnished them, ranging all the way from a model of the hydrogen atom to a