An Activity Curriculum in a School of Mexican Children

Abstract

Some years ago a Japanese student came to the University of Missouri. He had grad uated from a secondary school in Japan under the guidance of American teachers. He was admitted as a freshman. Within a few weeks it was discovered that he had insufficient command of the English language to enable him to understand the lectures and the read ings assigned. His adviser brought him to me, as I was then in charge of the University High School. I was asked to place this Japanese student in two or even three classes in English. My reply was prompt: high school class in English is not the place for a student of foreign tongue to learn the language. Let me place him in the seventh grade where, under my direction, that class is following a strictly activity curriculum, not at all the conventional subjects. This Japanese student will acquire control over our language if engaged in a simple study here English is constantly and insistently functioning. His later record as a univer sity student supports this contention. Observation in the lower grades of the schools in Southern California led the writer to feel that foreign-tongued pupils, chiefly Mexican though many Japanese, are not schooled. effectively. Too much time and effort is given to the mere form of our language with insufficient ideas to be expressed in Eng lish. That is, the language presented to them is largely formal rather than function al. The pupils respond relatively little; they have little for which to respond. Sim ilarly, these little people are put to the task of learning to read, but advancement in story content is so slow that motivation is absent and response is negative. Bits of number work and exercises in writing pro voke a minimum of response; to these foreign tongued children there is really nothing to which they can respond. And by reason of this lack of response, provision is quite generally made for a little-B-one grade which spends a half year or even a full year in getting ready to enter the regular first grade. A district superintendent offered me a strictly Mexican school for my study, ex perimentation and demonstration. I was al lowed practically full direction of curricu lum work of the school, and supervision of the teachers. In September, 1930, the school enrolled about 75 pupils with three teachers. In September, 1931, a fourth teacher was added and enrollment increased to about 110 pupils. In the first year the school was organized into grades, second and first, with a prefirst, a group regarded as so handi capped in language that one year of schooling was needed before these children were ready to pursue the regular first grade work. This same organization continued the second year, but included grades three and four, with some admissions from other schools. In the third year, September 1932 to June 1933, the prefirst grade was practically omitted, that is, all pupils who were six or nearly six years of age were placed at once in the first grade. Pupils in the other grades were advanced largely on the basis of age. The tabular view presented below covers only the first two years, and not this later organiza tion. The school is located about forty miles southeast of Los Angeles, in the township of Placentia. For miles around are orange groves, with some rather extensive walnut groves. Adjacent to this country school is a Mexican hamlet, a cluster of huts. The inhabitants are relatively stable; occasional ly occupied in picking fruit and nuts in the vicinity. Many of the Mexicans in nearby regions, hov/ever, live in old Ford cars, mov ing them about wherever there is any work, or they pitch their tents in orange or walnut groves and move on as conditions require. Not so in this school district where relative ly little migration exists. There is much un employment and Idleness. Men pitch quoits or just sit in the warm sun. Women, when