His heart was so light as he led them down the broad stairs to the vestibule that he forgot all about his age and almost ran into Miss Alcott.
"Well," she reproached him, "do you think you could manage to keep those youngsters here another year? My nerves are shot!" Without waiting for a reply, she bustled down to the waiting cars. "Ah, my little children!" "Good-bye, teacher!"
He waved and smiled at everything and anything.
The chauffeur grinned at the old man.
The crowd began to disperse. The children stood looking over the back seat windows at him.
"See you, Miss Alcott! Good-bye! Good-bye!" He wiped the corner of his eye with his handkerchief. "Oh, bless you! Bless you! Both of you!" (Pardon him if he is a little emotional. It had been quite a strain on him.)
The cars ground their gears as they turned the corner.
"Well," he thought, turning to trudge up the stone stairs again, “well, that's done!"
SEVERAL years ago, with the approval of parents who felt the need for children's society for their "only" children, a small group of babies between twenty and thirty-six months was brought together by the Bureau of Educational Experiments in a Day Nursery. We believed that children at this early age were ready and eager for contacts with their peers, and our observations there assured us that this belief was well founded. Even better proof of their social capacity and needs was found in watching the effect on the babies' spontaneous activities of the physical set-up of the environment. After two years of experimentation we established a full day program for children from fourteen to thirty-six months under our own auspices, and this Nursery School has since been our major consideration and our most satisfying laboratory. We recognize how tentative any formulation regarding children is and especially one concerning children of this very early age which has been little explored. All we can do is to offer our observations based upon the continuous study of a limited number of individuals in a carefully planned and controlled environment. The statements concern physical environment and program. This is because the environment has been our special concern up to the present and because the value of the environment can only be estimated as its adequacy proves out through the activities of the children. A record of what the children do in the environment will eventually comprise the major part of the report of this section. The following brief summary describes the present status of our experiment in regard to environment, equipment, program, and our understanding of the resulting activities of the children at different stages of their development as we see it up to date. This is the latest but still a tentative record of our work in the Nursery School.
The environment aims to give the children the opportunity to learn to manage their bodies and to use the physical equipment about them. It also permits them to try out their own developing physical and language powers in relation to other children and to adults. This calls for space and opportunity for free and unimpeded motor activity with large and small muscles, out of doors as well as in doors; it requires equipment for physical experiment that can be managed by the children, and tools and materials which lead to or facilitate manipulation and construction. Given such an environment we consider it our function to see what use children will make of it and then to plan further for their growing skill and understanding. It means establishing an atmosphere in which children learn to find limits and so escape the strain of attempting to dominate their environment and the people in it. The routine side of their lives is the one largely emphasized in current literature on the child of this age. This must of course form a framework upon which other activities are reared and this implies making sure of food, sleep, rest, health supervision and elimination. This routine however becomes entirely subsidiary after adjustment to the environment takes place. In a well regulated nursery as well as in a nursery school of the type we describe, the children accept the technique or routine surrounding the meals and sleeping. There ought to be adequate provision for outdoor space in either scheme. The nursery school seeks further to give children the maximum opportunity to develop interests of an increasingly organized kind. These call into play large muscular activities and also lead to purposeful use of materials and give children an increased capacity for responding reasonably to playmates and adults in a varied and changing environment.
An analysis of our observation reveals that children under three approach environments through large muscle activity and motor investigation; through sensory investigation; through exploring social relationship. We find that the play following this investigation is an integration of motor and sensory experiences into the life of the imagination-in other words, the dramatization of environmental factors.
The material should stimulate motor and sensory experience.
The children range practically over the entire lower floor-using the main room, hall, coat-room, and occasionally the kitchen. They also use the stairway continually. Excepting on bitter winter days and rainy days the children's spontaneous activities out of doors exceed their indoor activities. Even on these stormy days the open window room supplies fresh air but does not elicit the vigorous activities that characterize the play on the roof. They spend half the morning upstairs in cold weather, so the equipment in the room differs little from that on the roof.
The equipment indoors provides opportunity to practice to pull and push, to poke, to lift and carry, to kick, to pile or mass, to balance, to drop, to fit together.
It consists of:
Apparatus blocks
small cart (home made)
kiddie kars
doll carriage
small chairs and tables
pegs and boards bell
boxes (a nest, and a few miscellaneous)
pans, pails, bottles
spoons, etc.
sand paper blocks
balls
crayons
large crayons in a variety of colors, 4½ x ½ in.
large sheets of paper
books
clay (kept in a small covered jar and placed on a table)
tools
hammer, screw driver.
The roof is surrounded by a parapet and is covered by an awning. There are four fairly distinct areas within this space. First, a section which centers about the sand-box; second, a pebble section; third, the cement surface forming the bulk of the floor space and fourth, the pent house which occupies half the width of the roof forming an ell that can only be reached over a short flight of steps. For convenience we shall speak of these roughly defined sections indicating what use each invites and what material it offers. By no means are activities limited to these specialized areas; sand journeys over the roofs in carts, blocks share the gravel pit, boxes become seats for riders of kiddie kars.
Our children from 16 to 36 months of age find abundant opportunity for practicing all their newly acquired and still imperfect activities such as balancing, climbing, running, stamping, turning about. Also, and more important from the point of view of developing their powers of manipulation, are the invitations to construct, to dramatize, to investigate. From this unorganized environment an organized one develops in exact accordance with the inner capacities of the children.
1. The SAND BOX. About it is grouped material which the children employ at first largely for manipulation, then for combining with sand and more and more for combining sand and material in dramatic play. They pile the sand; they dig; they fill various receptacles; they transport it from place to place. The equipment at the sand box includes bowls, cups, spoons, pans, (all metal) bottles with and without corks; sieves of various types; paving blocks (approx. 4 x 4 x 8, weighing about 4 lbs.) These blocks play a large part in the early manipulative and structural activities and find extended space in the general roof section. Small carts.
2. The PEBBLE SECTION. Pebbles take the place of sand to some extent but lack the plasticity of damp sand; pebbles serve largely for transferring, loading and dumping; for making sounds by being thrown, dropped and stepped upon. The equipment supplied for these activities naturally duplicates the sand box equipment: tin dishes and spoons; shovels; pails and cans.
3. THE GENERAL ROOF SECTION. The area covered by cement. This invites practically every large muscle activity including climbing, balancing, jumping, sliding: dragging and pushing objects about, manipulating blocks and boards of different weights and dimensions. The equipment makes use of children's ability for simple adaptation of environment since all structures of boards, blocks and boxes must be put together by them. Equipment groups into three general types roughly indicated by apparatus, structural and plastic material and rolling stock.
Apparatus:
Swing
Steps leading to elevated slide
Slide
Jumping off steps
2 benches and one table
Tools:
1 hammer
Structural Material:
Blocks City and Country size.
(Same proportions: City, size is two times Country size)
Paving blocks 4 x 8 x 4 in.-wt. about 3¾ lbs.
Specially cut blocks:
half cubes 4 x 4 x 4
bricks 4 x 8 x 2
double bricks 4 x 16 x 2
triangles
cylinders
Boards. Lengths 3 ft., 4 ft., 5 ft., 6 ft. Mostly planed pine boards approximately 1 in. thick and 10 in. wide. One board 6 in. wide, 6 ft. long, with cleats near ends to hold it to the ground, used for balancing purposes. Assorted small pieces of clean lumber. Saw horse (home made), about 22 in. high, 14 x 18 leg spread base, body part made of two boards making 5 x 4 surface. Four cleats hold sliding boards in place.
Boxes (packing boxes) Usually two from 20 to 30 in. height, about 30 in. long x 24 in. or 30 in. wide. Some solid-others open at the ends or with 10 in. board at end. Smaller boxes (starch and soap, etc.)
Rolling Stock. Kiddie Kars-without pedals or children's pedals removed. Three lengths. Carts-different make empty boxes and discarded carts adapted. Express cart equipped with 10 in. board sides, ends removed. Sled. Broom.
4. THE PENT HOUSE. This room opens out on the part of the roof just described and contains the equipment when not in use. It is a room about 15 x 6½ ft. and can be completely cleared; but generally it affords a chance to stow away a limited amount of material against storms and in doing this forms odd piles of blocks, boxes, cans and toys that invite climbing and exploration of a kind not easily presented elsewhere. Aside from the apparatus on rainy days it provides opportunities for experimenting with materials quite differently than if on the open roof. Being an enclosed small space, sound is greatly amplified, space becomes much narrowed, playmate contact is largely increased. The flight of three steps by which the pent house is approached is generally made use of by children from the moment they come to the roof to the time they leave. It supplements importantly all the large muscle apparatus as jumping off, climbing up and down goes on here incessantly.
The observation has covered to date three fairly distinct age groups and we attempt in the subsequent summary to describe children within them. They are generally those under 20 months, those from 20 to 26 or 27 months, and those approaching 3 years. We note fairly distinct modes of attack within these periods. From these we deduce interests, capacities and development and accordingly check the environment and the program. But this differentiation between ages rests almost wholly upon the extent to which integration goes on, because sensory experiences and dramatization may be present in children of every age we have in the nursery.
The environment proves adequate: when children carry on self-initiated simple motor and sensory activities within it; when new uses, combinations and adaptation of materials keep pace with children's obvious increasing mechanical skill; when interests expand and become sustained; when there is reasonable self-adjustment between playmates and adults. We find: Children UNDER TWENTY MONTHS seem largely interested in large muscle activity and sensory or manipulative experiment. Dramatization, whenever it occurs, appears fragmentary. Use of materials: they drag, push, poke, handle, carry, kick, pile, knock down, fit together, open, shut. Large muscle activity:-they walk, stamp, climb, run, slide. Sensory:-investigation depends largely upon taste, touch, smell, balance, temperature and muscle sense. Dramatization:-deals largely with adult or household activities as seen from the baby's limited participation in them-feeding, sleeping, carrying objects. In adapting environment they act upon isolated objects rather than arranging objects and material harmoniously about a distinct point of view. Interest centers around action, not around material and not around result. They attempt social overtures to adult and playmates-hug, poke, strike to get response.
Children from TWENTY MONTHS to roughly TWENTY-SIX MONTHS of age generally extend the earlier activities by showing marked ability to handle a variety of materials with more purpose. They adapt their environment with the object of getting wider sensory motor experiences. Dramatization gains through their increased range of information, increased motor facility and increased mastery of language technique. They begin dramatic representation, very simply and fragmentarily. The younger children employ objects directly,-eating, drinking, etc. With the older children dramatic situations grow largely out of large muscle or other experiences. Riding a kiddie kar generally turns out to be "riding a ferry boat," "riding a train;" loading and transferring in little wagons turns out to be getting the sand over to "S"-sliding is "running ferry boat;" steps, boards and sand box frequently are linked up into a comprehensive whole. Use of materials: materials appear in combination, as small boards with large boxes, blocks with steps; they use equipment in dramatic form, e. g., pushing heavy blocks over cement surfaces and calling it "a taxi" or "a ferry boat" indicating that size, weight, and general clumsiness form the connecting links between the blocks and taxi rather than appearance. Large muscle activity: includes all previous activities; jumping off; they increase skill and speed and learn practically all there is to be learned of large motor technique in the environment; all large motor processes appear with increasing frequency as component parts of the dramatic life. They use rolling stock as vehicles. In sensory experiences the previous sensory motor experimentation develops toward construction and drama-with blocks sand and paper. Sound experiments continue. Sand experiences involve the mixing of water and sand, utilizing of different forms and making hills. Clay experiences begin with pounding and handling of mass. Colors, form and size are incidentally distinguished, not taught.
By THIRTY TO THIRTY-SIX MONTHS children are beginning to seek expression along fairly definite lines. Play is organized, social relations assume more significance, and large muscle and other experiences function with less apparent struggle. Their imaginative life demands the entire equipment to meet their larger needs; they frequently press playmates and adults into their play. While interests often focus clearly about one activity and carry them through a sequence of activities in order to achieve the desired result, they still are capable of completely changing the entire situation back to manipulation solely if they hit upon a novel sensory motor result at any point within the sequence. Materials are combined with quite evident relation to each other. Block experimentation leads toward fairly simple construction. Clay experiences lead occasionally to very crude representation. Sand experiences become a field for drama. Dramatic representation includes domestic and common occupational activities. They name structures. Design and feeling for color develop in varying degrees. They are able to co-operate as playmates, though an entirely individualistic approach characterizes much of their relation with each other. A detailed account of children and environment may be found in the current Bulletin Number XI of the Bureau of Educational Experiments.
THE record on the growth month by month of the play of an individual child between the ages of 14 and 20 months in the Nursery School, shows how inextricably physical, functional development and growing interests are woven together, and how closely language keeps pace with action. The choice of play activities reveals largely the process of obtaining command of functions; it indicates almost no tendency to dramatize environmental factors. Sensory investigation accompanies most of this activity but it shows essentially how children acquire physical control through exploring things in the environment. C. F. entered Nursery at 14 months of age.
14 MONTHS: Has just learned to walk and her entire effort centers upon learning to cover distance. Not firm on her feet, walks unsteadily, with hands held at shoulder height for balancing. She carries a block or toy in her hand or under her arm, possibly because it gives her a feeling of balance. Steps down and up over barriers 1 in. or 2 in. high but is not able to attempt more than this. She enjoys manipulation of small blocks and paving blocks; lifts, carries and knocks them together for the sound. Much general undifferentiated activity; pounds, climbs, runs, drags. Enjoys having attention of adults and generally cries when adults pay no attention to her approach, which consists in standing by or patting them.
15 MONTHS: Shows definite increase in motor ability. Investigates apparatus which she has not previously done; climbs the entire flight of slide stairs without hesitation; tries walking down as well; walks up plank inclines using hands for added security. Goes up onto balancing board but cannot walk on it on account of insufficient balance; attempts to lift large boxes but cannot over-turn them. Begins handling hollow blocks; attempts to get paving blocks, 4 x 4 x8, which are a full load for her, into small carts, which calls for ability to lift, to maintain balance and let go of load after it reaches the right place. Greatly enjoys manipulation: carries objects about mostly to drop or pound. Socially continues to like adult attention: laughs and smiles when noticed; seems to get a great deal of pleasure from older member of nursery group who looks out for her in a motherly way: submits to being rolled in cart, handled and kissed; apparently recognizes the protective quality of older child's approach.
16 MONTHS: General walking ability much improved though hands are still extended to aid balance; has acquired new adjustments as she can kick vigorously but cannot swing her body. Climbing improves, gets over boxes and up onto higher places than hitherto. General manipulative play similar except that she handles materials with more facility. Noticeable difference in her social behavior; attempts to get contacts with adults by means of coos and laughs instead of whining and crying as in previous month; smiles and laughs at other children's active exploits but when children approach her generally turns to adults for protection.
17 MONTHS: Most outstanding physical acquisition is learning to ride the kiddie kar. At first she pushed it from behind, later learned to sit upon it and push it ahead. Runs about pushing small cart. She manipulates balls and begins to be interested in sand out of doors. Still likes to watch other children. Social behavior similar to last month's; frequently laughs until she falls over when anyone does anything that amuses her. Shows marked development in vocabulary development, has added up, down, hot, more.
18 MONTHS: Marked general improvement in equilibrium: gets down off box 12 inches high, letting herself backwards, feet first; slides down slide holding on edges with hands; pushes cart and can turn corners with it; goes up three stairs, pushing cart ahead of her but gives up cart when she comes down again; gets down on kiddie kar safely after becoming "stuck" over crack in cement. Less carrying about of materials, less knocking together of blocks; spends much more of her time in exploring limits of large apparatus. Can fit small box over peg of puzzle box but only after trying to pound it on. Less crying when playthings are taken away by other children, begins to strike out in return; seeks adults only for special help in adjusting dress, buttons, etc.; recognizes differences in treatment of different children; strikes the 27 months' old child when he attempts to touch her, smiles and watches the two older children when they engage in rough play. The child to whom she formerly submitted she now definitely refuses to co-operate with. Seems to distinguish between "mine" and "thine". Tries to feed herself but can not succeed; language acquisition developing rapidly, uses 30 meaningful sounds.
19 MONTHS: Physical activities extended at this point definitely toward increased balancing ability: climbs readily into express wagon over solid 10 in. sides which needs very nice co-ordination of muscles; handles wheelbarrow steadily, picking it up securely which calls for complicated body adjustment; goes up step ladder on slide to the top and stands on the step below the top platform without holding on with her hands. Seems to lose practically all interest in manipulative play in excess of physical activity: rarely handles carts, blocks, dolls; swings in swing, sits in sand box, runs about roof and slides. Play assumes a somewhat more organized form: will sit in a cart for a considerable time being wheeled by others; walks backwards pulling a cart; repeats "all over" when falling off kiddie kar.
20 MONTHS: Physical activities center about jumping and climbing: goes up steps on slide (four in number, approximately 8 in. high): from there attempts to jump over to a neighboring box: succeeds but catches her toe several times: shows absolutely no fear and climbs immediately to slide platform to repeat the process. Slides over ends of large boxes as if they were a regular slide. Balances extremely well on small rolling toys; gets to her feet on kiddie kar. Uses much small material: carries about brooms, mops, dolls, covers dolls, feeds dolls, wheels them in the carriage: rarely pounds for the sake of noise; sand interests are chiefly with a cup and a spoon. Often attempts the impossible, but calls quickly for assistance. Does not try out her environment, is quite sure how components function. Uses one, two, tree, fore, fyve. Sings. Resists playmate's aggression vigorously and screams; is generally aggressive toward new baby, pokes him, runs over him on kiddie kar, etc., pushes him over. Very anxious for adult approval and continually calls attention to her accomplishments.
THE preceding articles give a very definite educational policy: that is an effort towards an active absorption by the children of their environment, the familiar things with which they come into daily contact. "Active" with young children means motor or manual activity, for by activity of muscles they take in, think out and recall. The kind of activity alters from muscular response by infants towards complicated manipulation by tools by older children, but until the power to build a substitute universe of words has long been established, muscular activity remains the young child's language. Such translation of experience into terms of the muscles has come to rank in value with acquiring facility in the vernacular itself. In fact the child who learns to act out his experience gains a kind of maturity of experience unattainable simply by means of passive absorption. The attempt therefore is towards a technique that aids the child to select facts from his daily contacts and to reproduce them largely in his play instead of making his mind the repository for stories, anecdotes, precepts and unrelated facts. This policy represents the backbone, the main structure of the entire experiment from the Nursery through the eighth grade of the City and Country School.
Within this same basic policy of letting children reproduce an experienced environment rather than a hearsay environment, my experiment shapes itself along its own peculiar patterns. And for two reasons. In the first place although language functions largely with very young children merely as a rhythmic sound, its importance increases as children grow older until they learn to read. For until then the spoken or heard word represents their only literature. In the second place practically my entire work proceeds entirely empirically, subject to instant revision to meet the needs of the children and their teachers. And this procedure naturally differs in result from the more systematically evolved general technique of the school.
We study the group to discover what the outstanding characteristics are with regard to rhythm, tone qualities, use of words as language and use of words as sound, sense memories, motor expressions, social relationships as well as the more fundamental processes belonging to the whole growth of the child's mind. And when our investigation yields a fact or two we plan an exercise emphasizing it. This empiric approach requires not alone study based directly on the children's response to an environment but an analysis of adult preconceptions about educational material.
First, analysis of the subject: Take for example, Geography. What constitutes the subject matter with children aged roughly from five through seven? We attempt to build up a working hypothesis as distinct as possible from our own conception of this subject. As adults we habitually handle maps; read complicated descriptions; generalize about climatic and topographic information; accept abstractions like boundary lines, distances, populations, natural products and international relations and we label them Geography. In short, we deal constantly with symbols representing the experience of others as well as symbols representing our own experience. To apply this adult method of thought to children aged five seems absurd to us; but wait, what substitutes do we offer? Do maps of fairyland and diagrams of imaginary cities offer less adult ways of meeting environment? Hardly, since they remain maps and diagrams and therefore function purely as symbols. Symbols of an imaginary environment instead of symbols of a real environment, it is true, but since children do little clear differentiating between fairy facts and factual facts either one must prove a confusing substitute for muscular participation in reality.
With the realization of the absolute lack of value with a five year old child of the adult symbol, the words information, reality, nature, environment take on quite different meanings for the teacher. Then these questions come forcibly to the front:
Are not experiences of his own senses the only facts comprehensible to a child of five? Does not his environment therefore include only what he manages to incorporate from it through seeing, touching, smelling, hearing and tasting? Can he assimilate any environment completely except by a muscular representation of what his senses bring to him?
Such analysis leads naturally to the rejection of adult geographical representations; and our substitute is the physical reproduction of his sensed observations in the form of play. What form his play shall take lies largely within the determination of the prevailing technique of play. To meet this we establish as rich an environment as our funds will admit and carefully supervise and aid the children so that their reproduction of their environment functions freely to its greatest extent.
But our supervision goes far deeper than simply encouraging active play. It aims towards developing the scope of his play by broadening his observation and supplying means to stimulate his ability increasingly to master and to correlate his observations and the impressions he gets from his play.
As soon as the importance of the children's spontaneous interest in building their environment had manifested itself to us in the City and Country School we realized that adult co-operation or teaching technique was desirable. As I have indicated before, what part the adult should take in the activity was determined for us empirically. We began to explore. And the method of exploring was taking children on trips. Since the beginning we have felt the necessity for these excursions with children between ages five and eight. They help the child to focus upon the realities of his world and they give him new relationships for his dramatizations. Furthermore it provides the teacher with material that she shares equally with the children. A brief story or geography, as it is called by the seven year olds, is given the separate groups on the days following trips as a means of further defining relationships, of fixing sense impressions through the medium of literature. This also forms the nucleus for discussion. Thus the "follow-up” has kept closely to literature and geography.
If you would like to know the general results of the application of this method look at the story of "The Steamboat and the Locomotive" (page 44). This roughly indicates how far and towards what ends a five year old approaches the world geographically. The story of "The Subway" (page 50) and "How the Singing Water got to the Tub" (page 48) indicate roughly the limits to which a seven year old assimilates the realities about him. The following accounts also give some idea of the general trend of results:
Our problem here is to discover what in their own city these six children are noticing, what more they are ready to notice, and how they express their relationships either in block building or in language. We find their language has two distinct phases although it is not easy to separate them; one, their social use of it with playmates-how their speech carries over to each other and influences each other's thought; two, their use of language as a form of art-where rhythmic values predominate.
A record of the results found is being kept. And we consider this record of paramount value educationally. We make the excursions usually on Friday. A teacher who attempts to keep a full record of what occurs, invariably accompanies the class teacher and children, and during the following five days we watch carefully the effect in building, drawing or spontaneous play resulting from the new impressions. Whenever words or play or drawings reflect some situation experienced or emphasize a new interest observed during a trip I make a story to meet this new attitude, and if possible, repeat the rhythm or expression invented by the child or group of children and carry the story along these suggestions. These generally follow the day after the trip; however, since all stories cannot trace a direct ancestry to some trip I tell stories weekly from the general storehouse of the "Here and Now Story Book." We shall continue to follow these lines recording observation of facts, sense perceptions and language development and noting later references to the trips. Some time we hope there will be enough material formulated from these notes to have value as method or as suggestions. To give an idea of what these trips accomplish I copy part of the notes taken on a typical excursion showing: general purpose of trip, the destination, what was noticed both coming and going, what occurred on following days and what sort of record evolved from the experiment.
"Our trip to the East River had a good deal to do with coal which children had watched unloading at school. The route to the river lay past a coal office and past two coal cellars at which coal had recently been unloaded. We found the river full of tugs; it was Friday and a busy morning for river traffic. Also there were two stationary engines down at the place where the masonry for the new bulkhead was being put into place.
C. There's an engine over there too, down on the river... And I'm going to watch the smoke coming out of that tug. Hear it whistle 'toot'! To, to, to, to! Hear them all? Look at all those sea gulls! (Watching birds rising and poising over the water.)
E. Can sea gulls swim? I never saw a real live sea gull. Oh, yes, they swim and rest on the water! (Watching them settling down). I'm watching everything I can watch; I'm watching right and left. Now what are they all looking at? (Watching ducks waddling out over the stones). Look at those quackers.
C. Look over there a train! I can see it moving! (Bridge not visible through the smoke). And look at that thing coming up! (It was a clam shell scoop being raised on a derrick).
E. (At sight of two divers' boats). Oh look at the tugs!
(When divers' helmets and apparatus were explained he asked innumerable questions. Children generally confused between the terms 'divers' and 'ducks'. Some interesting rhythms in watching pulleys at work, ducks, sea gulls and coal).
Ducks waddling: Bump, bump, bump, bump.
(Ducks' movements were slow and deliberate without anything of 'waddle'. They negotiated the large stones with considerable difficulty, stopping perfectly still after each plunge forward).
The sea-gulls were wheeling largely about the boats and coming down to rest. When a gull was caught on the downward swoop E. said: E. Come to rest! Oh, come to rest! (Several times repeated on a slow drawn-out rhythm; when they spread their wings to rise, rising inflections). Up and down! Up and down! Tugs: (General confusion over signals. C. apparently tried to differentiate 'toot' and later began 'chug, chugs'. The big pulleys and scoops brought down with a rush): Clank, plump! Shss.
C. M. and E. got rhythm 'Up and down', 'Up and down' in raising and lowering cars, elevators, pulleys, etc., on way to and from river.
In reviewing the trip at lunch to teacher, emphasis made on ducks, (ducks' swimming especially); the scoop ("The great big scooper dipping down') the tugs 'with smoke coming out of back, middle, right, front'. All seemed interested in tug boats with relation to coal barges. Discussion: Difference between tugs with load and empty; high and low load. One loaded so high that you could not see tug boat, just load floating. Difference between ducks and divers.
E. (On getting indoors). May we play about trips?
C. Built boats of large blocks on floor; no details but two boats side by side, much smoke pipe and ‘chug-chug' to it with whistle 'toot'. Same kind of boats on paper later with crayons. Very crude but distinguishable as 'tugs on river'." (Notes somewhat simplified.)
The trips are the starting point for "Geography" exactly as with the younger children. The attempt continues to help them explore their immediate surroundings-New York City; to understand its intricacies of housekeeping, its mechanics, its natural features, its transportation system; and slowly their explorations expand out from the city itself. They follow up the streams of supply, getting out to the farm, into the harbor, under the river, or discovering how the streets find their relation to each other. Often after a trip they build an enormous map with blocks-playing out on it their new relationships. If this playing centers around tracks, boats, or houses, and does not require streets they use the entire free floor space. After the map takes form we look down upon it from the balcony. On this same balcony with chalk they make a huge floor map of the surrounding environment that relates to their play, and here they locate any point in the world they hear discussed. They try increasingly to express relationship of streets, direction, shapes of islands and rivers, putting in many important landmarks; all being built up entirely out of previous and accumulated play experiences. Frequently I read them a story written upon the basis of the facts they noticed. We do not try primarily to inform them through these stories. The aim is to make literature of their physical findings, recalling sounds and shapes and movement largely through the medium of rhythm and pattern.
Following are parts of the notes written on two excursions of this class showing method of taking notes, content, and the language:
TRIP TO MANHATTAN BRIDGE OVER EAST RIVER
What caused the trip: Spontaneous map building and question of relation of bridge and two rivers.
R. This is Broadway; there's no way to cross rivers except to cross a mighty bridge (pointing to Queensboro Bridge). T. Here's a bridge from Long Island. L. How do you get there to land? Do you go way 'round there to Brooklyn to go to land? No, to the river.
A. How deep is the bridge? Can the big liners go right under? P. It goes up and it's 180 feet high in the deepest place, deeper than any.
Results recorded:
B. It must be very far across because the automobiles look so small, no larger than a tiny bug. P. The trolleys look like centipedes. F. The man looks like a bee. J. What is a factory, A.? I'll tell you what a factory is, things that make things, big places where they make things . . . A. Look at the shadows on the river. B. It looks like a great lake because where's the little water turning to fall off the earth! Look way out! P. The river goes way far out. (Looking east). F. Way far out it looks all misty; I can't quite see down there. (Looking generally over East River) Lots of tracks. (On coming off bridge where several ways cross) Yes, there are six up, six down; and up higher see up there? F. The bridge comes this way and over that way, down this way then shoots off straight! Let me see down there, all those people, like a little, little bit of ants. And trolley cars about this big! (Measuring with forefinger about 1 in.) And the man goes inside and is smaller still . . . Look down at end (Pike's Slip); wait, I am . . you see this street shooting down and making a corner? (Water St.) M. Oh goodness what a lot of smoke! A. What kind of a boat? Oh look, another bridge off there! M. Brooklyn Bridge! F. Looks quite far away, as long as half the earth almost . . . M. Tugs just work and pull the whole time; poor things. L. That tug boat's smoking like an engine; poor boat's out of breath. It puffs and puffs; smoke's so thick I can't look through it. T. I'm taking my hat off, don't want to get it smoked to pieces. What kind of a boat is this? P. I think that goes across the ocean. M. No, no. Not a bit like an ocean liner; passenger, you can see 'em sitting on deck. J. It's a tug dragging two coal barges . . . Yes, going to stop on shore. There it bumps right over . . I can tell if I see some place to drop it . . . Ah, it's backing . . . T. (Sing-song to rhythm of cars on bridge.) We are the mighty, the mighty bridge, We stand forever, forever; Nothing can stand and stand The way we stand, Oh mighty bridge forever!
The discussion went on centering around distance: whether you go uphill or downhill off edge of water. F. Water has no hills, it lies just fat, very deep though. P. Over by land it slopes up. A. See those waves. R. When you swim out to edge you don't fall off, you go round edge; only you never get to the edge. B. Tugs look like little blocks when they're down below and over towards other shore. The discussion centered completely upon shapes of city and streets: distance; shadows; sounds. E . . . L . . . M . . . J . . . completely absorbed in watching tugs and scows. B. I can hear it buzz and boom . . . C. Listen to boat . . . Toot! They're so small they sound little but so big in machinery they make fearful noise. Puzzled by noise generally: T. All you hear is buzz and chug and choo . . . Cho, chug!
Causes for trip: A desire for map location and an interest in electricity.
What recalled: I stood right on the front looking out into darkness. W. See all the lights, red, blue, green; you know what they're for, for telling engineers when to go and stop, etc . . . All switching over onto other track (The flash from contact-shoe greatly noticed). D . . . D . . . W . . . C . . . E . . . and P watched flashes intently and on way out discovered mechanism above the third rail and underneath the second car. (General astonishment at noise as expresses tore by on center tracks). (Some attempts from B . . . to catch the rhythm of movement of car over tracks. C . . . imitated roar of incoming train on curve).
Follow up: Used maps extensively: drew subway maps.
FIVE year olds play out their environment-the things they see, touch, hear and the activities largely with their own bodies. When they build, their structures repeat over and over the simple facts they observe: the wheels go round, the boat goes toot, toot, the steam goes push, swish or chug! There is very little of sustained incident, generally only unconnected events; almost no detail of surroundings and but the barest outline in characterization, and in consequence practically no plot. Such are the findings after five years spent listening to them invent play with tools and materials. Out of the results I aim to create simple stories which emphasize rhythm, using language for itself quite as much as using language to convey a connected thought. The attempt centers around a distinct sound translation of facts. Five year olds invariably receive their most significant impressions rhythmically:
"Sh, sh, sh, goes the water
And tick, tick, tick, goes the big clock,
But what do I care!"
This is a whole story according to one child. It deals with fact. But how rhythmically stated and why? Because to a child who still masters a precarious physical adjustment of his muscles over varying obstacles, rhythmic sound gives profound physical relief and rest. The story "The Steamboat and the Locomotive" gives in adult method what a five year old demands from his experience.
There appears a large measure of unscientific fact in this five year old experience. Since children possess practically no scientific interest I make no attempts to emphasize machinery until their observation matures. It remains sufficient to say the steam turns the wheels; some time later it will be time to notice what wheels the steam pushes hich first and how.
Here is a story of a steamer that crosses the ocean and a locomotive that goes zooming across the land.
The Steamer
Oh, see the ship! It's a big, black ship. Way down in the bottom of the ship is the coal-black coal. Who is putting the coal in the fire? The stokers. Two stokers! Out comes the smoke. Huge, black clouds of smoke! Where does it come from? It comes from the fire-from the big black coal fire. Listen to it hiss, hiss. Listen to it hiss! Who makes the wheels go round? "I", says the steam, "I make the wheels go round!" Swish! Now look at the water-the deep blue water. Swish! Listen to the water. Do you hear what it says? Do you hear what the water's saying? Listen: Whoosh! Swish! Splash! Hiss, says the steam; hiss, hiss, hiss! Round and round and round go the wheels. "Oh!" says the smoke, "oh, what a long way; way up in the air; oh what a long way from the coal to the air! Way down in the ship am I; way down in the fire am I; then up, up, up! Poof, I'm out of the pipe! Poof, out in the air! Such a long way!" Up comes the smoke; it's black smoke! Then out it goes, out, out, way out over the water. Way out in the air. Out over the deep, blue water! Oh, see the birds-the white sea gulls. See them fly. Do you hear what they cry when they fly? Squawk, squawk! They like it. Swish! Hiss! Splashing water, white sea gulls, and big black ship. Squawk, squaw! Plunge, plunge! The ship's going fast; but where is it going? It's going over the ocean. Now it's way, way out in the ocean! Way, way out on the roaring ocean. Oh, the sea gulls have all flown away. There is nothing but deep blue water! Swish, whoosh, splash, plunge, hisss! What's the ship doing? It's sailing across the ocean. What are the wheels doing? Turning, turning, turning! Who makes the wheels go round? "I", says the steam, "I make the wheels go round. I'm turning the wheels!" Whoosh! Plunge! A steamer's crossing the ocean!
The Locomotive
There comes the locomotive. Look at it go over the tracks. Black tracks, long tracks. Look at all the wheels! A big, black smoke-pipe; big black smoke! Poof, puff, puff, poof, puff! The engine is going. Zoom, zoom, clatter, clatter! Shs! The locomotive! How can it go so fast? There is a big fire in it. Huge fire, hot fire. Such hot fire! Black coal and a big, red burning fire! Way down inside the engine is the fire! Oh, hear the water boiling. Hiss, hiss! There's steam in the water. What does the steam do? "I make the wheels go round. I push the wheels!" Listen to the steam: Hiss! Clatter, clatter, click, clack! See the wheels turn round! See the big, black wheels! Oh, going so fast! Listen to the whistle: Toot, toot! Who is that way up in the cab? Way up high? It's the engineer. He pulls the bell. Clang, clang, clang! He likes it! Ding, dang! Look how fast the engine zooms along the track! The two long, shiny tracks. Look, what's behind the locomotive? Boxcars! Freight cars! Heavy freight cars! One, two, three, four, five! Ten! Goodness, way, way down the track! Thirty freight cars! All full of things: Full of wood, full of coal, full of iron! Heavy freight cars! The locomotive pulls the heavy freight cars. The big black locomotive pulls the heavy freight cars. Zoom, zoom, whoo, whoo, chug, chug, chug! Clang! Toot! Oh, what a long, big and heavy train! Look! It's so far away! Chug, chug, chug! It's gone. Nothing but two, long, shiny tracks!
SEVEN year olds seek relationship. They constantly ask, "why" "where", "how". To be told the answer to their questions from adult findings does them no good because there exists generally no relation in their minds between the findings of adults and their own specific questioning. And even though they could remember what constitutes a perfectly obvious relationship to us, they would not be acting out the reality for themselves and satisfying their demand to experience things through sensory channels first. Consequently we have found it wise to let their curiosity develop by playing over processes. Slowly relationships emerge out of facts if they represent a personal finding of the children: Water runs into the tub from a faucet; the plumber puts pipes into the house; the water drips when the faucet leaks; and men are digging up mains under the streets; water falls from the sky when it rains. To us this simple logic reads clearly; to the five year old the facts are sufficiently interesting to last for hours of absorbing reproduction but to the seven year old these facts demand relationship: Water rains down: It gets into the house through mains and pipes; it runs out into tubs and basins: why does it rain and why does water go into pipes?
These stories "How the Singing Water got to the Tub" and "The Subway" endeavor to take up this questioning and to answer it somewhat in accordance with the seven year old powers of assimilation: that is catching simply the basic logic of relationship and stripping them in great part of scientific detail and entirely of scientific generalization. Children know about reservoirs but what precisely happens between the reservoirs and the tub presents a fascinating mystery. Do you remember when you learned to generalize about the pressure of water running evenly according to the law of gravity? Well, a young child cannot manage to establish the law in his mind by making all water come uniformly under this statement; instead we start to establish the facts that lead up sequentially to generalizations by establishing them over and over through the sensory-motor reproduction of realities.
THE singing water came leaping down the side of the great mountain. It was going to the Reservoir! So over the rocks it splashed: Splash! splash! It babbled over the pebbles and lay dark and quiet in the little pools. The sun shone upon the silver water; "I will keep water clear," said the sun. The rain pattered down upon the singing water; "I will keep water fresh," said the rain. Still went the water hurrying down the river towards the reservoir. Sometimes it ran swiftly making a gurgling rushing sound. And it rushed right into a great pond-for years and years the water from the mountains had been rushing into the pond until it was very, very deep. Around the edges were high stone walls. It was the reservoir! Now the singing, hurrying water was in the reservoir; it was perfectly still, no longer leaping and singing over rocks, but waiting. Men had made the large high stone reservoir way back in the far-a-way hills. "When the people in the great faraway city need water to wash with, or to drink, it's there in the reservoir all waiting for them," the men said. "Oh," said the water, "how shall I get out of this still pond to the far-away great city?" Way down in the bottom of the reservoir was a large hole and in this hole was fitted a big round iron pipe. There were lots of other pipes connected to this one pipe making a long dark tunnel. It did not babble in the dark pipe and the sun did not shine on it and the rain did not patter on it. Because the water was far under ground in the great pipe. All you could hear was rushing water, running along through a dark tunnel under ground!
The water ran along through the pipe toward the great far-away city. By and by it came to the very, very big city. Could the people see the water? No, for the running water was under ground where the streets and the tracks and the wires were; the pipe-tunnel lay right under the street. Only a little while ago the street was torn up and lots of men working with pick axes and drills made a deep hole right in the very street where you are walking today. They brought some huge iron pipes and fitted them together, making a tunnel and then covered them all up with dirt and asphalt. It was watermains they were laying; large fat round water-mains! Now the singing hurrying water that came down the mountains to the reservoir ran into the great mains. It rushed along under ground, under the city streets!
Now underneath the ground on the street where the little boy lived was a water-main. Up from this huge pipe went a smaller pipe, right into the house where he lived. Up through the cellar it went, up through the floors, into the little boy's bathroom.
The little boy went into the bathroom; he was very dirty. "I need some water in my tub," he said, and he turned on the bright silver faucet. Oh! out came the singing hurrying water right into the white enameled tub! Was it rushing and leaping through the mountains? Was it lying quiet in the great reservoir? No, it was splashing right out of the faucet into the white tub! Splashing, singing water! The water came through the long dark tunnel in the ground right into the pipes in his very own house!
Listen: Ssh. Whsss.. Ssh. Here in the subway station it's so hot; hear the people bustling about here on the great wide platform. It smells of rubber and dirt and oil and people's clothes! Hear the bustle: clicketty, clacketty, shufflety.. Everybody's walking-no one is ever still; running, clicketty, clacketty, down the stairs towards the tracks. Pushing, hurrying people; clicketty, clacketty! And the noise! The trains rumble over the tracks: rumble, rumble! Over the shiny shiny tracks, rumble, rumble, RUMBLE! Ssh... the doors are sliding. Shhssh.. Ssh . . they slam bang! All the people are hurrying out of the brightly lighted cars. Plump, bang, whoo!. Do you see everybody stepping off the train? Such a crowding and pushing through the little doors: Then wait! Ssh.. The doors are shutting... ssh.. Hear the motors going over the tracks! Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble! Buzz, zzz.
We are waiting on the platform; clicketty clacketty walking about waiting on the platform. Can we see the bright lights on the trains way way far up into the dark tunnel where the tracks lead? Oh, a green light! The shiny tracks lie along the ground; see the sparks over on the other side? Some trains are going down town and some are flying by on the other side going way up town! Oh wait, see the green lights way up in the tunnel? Listen: there is a huge rumble.. Rummble. .. Whoooo. Here comes the great iron express train. All the cars are bright inside overhead, and the windows throw great square yellow spots along the wall. Rumble. . rumble .. Whhoooo! We can see the people inside the brightly lighted cars. Are there hundreds of people? They fly past: It's roaring over the tracks. Why didn't it stop? Why didn't the giant train stop? Oh, because it was rumbling along towards the express station way way down town down the track. Such a noise when it flew past down into the dark tunnel! It rumbled and rattled! Can you see the red lights on the back end of the cars way way off? There goes the train way down the track!
Wait! Ssh. I hear another buzz and roar; rumble, rummble. . That is our train; we're going a long way underground, so fast, on the shiny tracks. Look into the cars at the bright windows! Does the train rumble? Yes, RUMMBBLE! Such a roaring noise! Whoooo, Rummbble. It has stopped. Sshh.. The little doors slide back and all the hurrying people step out of the cars onto the great wide platform. Shufflety, clicketty, clacketty; such a smell of clothes and oil and rubber and dirt! Now push, get upon the car, lots of people getting on the car! Now everybody is inside. Ssh.. listen to the doors sliding so quickly. Shhs.. slam, bang! Sshh. Wait! Rummble.. The giant train is moving; buzzing and whooing! Going along over the shiny tracks. Now it rocks back and forth and buzzes so fast that you can't hear what everybody is saying, you can just see everybody sitting still. We are rushing along underneath the ground, way under the streets! Rummble, rumble Whoooo!. Everything is perfectly black outside the bright car. Not a thing to see except some shiny little posts that hold the tunnel up. Now can I see a green light out of the front window? Now can I see the tracks: the shiny long tracks? Oh, it is flying! The giant train is zooming over the tracks! Rummble, whooo! It flies round a corner, see the sparks spitting out underneath the car? Listen to the roaring.. Underneath the streets we're flying inside the bright car. Can anybody on the streets see us buzz and rattle down in the dirt? No, because we're inside the dark tunnel. Now everybody get ready to get out. See the lights away down here; there is the great wide platform. Is everyone standing about? Rumble, whoooo.. Pst, hss. The heavy train has stopped! Ssh... Slide! Get out of the bright cars quickly! All the people are pouring out of the train: plump, thump, shuffle, whoo!. Ssh... the doors are moving.. ssh. Oh, there goes the giant train buzzing and roaring way, way down the track! It leaves nothing but the two long shiny tracks in the dark tunnel!
THE foregoing pages carry descriptions which may seem bare to you though very full of meaning to us who are recording week by week changes almost imperceptible to others. For the results here have to be built up by infinitely small degrees since the processes with which we try to co-operate function slowly and deliberately in producing ultimate results. And the nature and character of our findings must be determined slowly out of the actual experience of attempting to formulate a working hypothesis regarding education for the earlier years. What the school stands for is of far greater importance to us than the value it holds. It stands for an empirical method of procedure with the environment of children as its working center: an attempt to help children acquire through activity the largest understanding of their world. When education meets this issue the emphasis cannot lie too strongly upon any formal results in particularized or distinct channels.
THE BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS publishes reports of work of unquestioned scientific value or of such pioneer or experimental value as to be considered a real contribution to the general educational problem. A descriptive circular gives a short account of experiments. The following reports summarize much observation and inquiry and define the attitude underlying our experiments. A complete list of bulletins will be sent upon request. Applications for the list and the circular as well as single bulletins and volumes should be made to the Bureau at 144 West 13th Street.
MENTAL GROWTH OF CHILDREN IN RELATION TO RATE OF GROWTH IN BODILY DEVELOPMENT. (In press)
By Buford J. Johnson, Ph.D. Detailed results of five years' measurements.
HEALTH EDUCATION AND THE NUTRITION CLASS
A descriptive and educational report by Jean Lee Hunt, Buford J. Johnson, and Edith M. Lincoln. E. P. Dutton & Co. 1921. ($3.50. Postage extra). Detailed results of extensive experimentation in preventing malnutrition and securing health development in school children. Includes analysis of environment, educational procedure, children's capacities and social responses.
NURSERY SCHOOL EXPERIMENT. Bulletin Number XI
By Harriet M. Johnson. 1922. (75 cents). Comprehensive summary of two years' study touching environment, children's activities and physical findings.
THE HERE AND NOW STORY BOOK
By Lucy Sprague Mitchell. E. P. Dutton & Co. 1921. ($2.00. Postage extra). Offers stories for children centering about their known environment; sets forth value of approach, based on author's experience.
Education Library
LB 1027
S27. No.12
186178
School and home
cop2
v. 1
no. 1
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
Form L9-100m-9,'52 (A3105) 444
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
