Children Not in School

(Continued from page 35)

that a certificate of vaccination be presented before admitting any child to school. For numerous other reasons it is also advisable to have the official record of the date of birth presented as soon as possible.

Immediately upon withdrawal of the pupil from school the new Transfer Card, Form PICA-23TC, with the attached Receipt, Form PICA-23TCR, should be mailed to the next school which the child expects to attend, when such information is known; otherwise, it should be given to the parent for transmittal. Immediately when a migrant child arrives at a school, the teacher or principal should fill in the "Receipt of Transfer and Request for Health and School Records" and return same to the school where the pupil last attended, so that the records may be forwarded promptly. This procedure will make it possible for the essential records to follow these children. It would be very desirable if the school could provide portfolios for certain records such as the official record of the date of birth, vaccination certificate, report card, and any other incidental information which might be helpful to the new teacher. Such records could thus be kept intact and carried from place to place by the parent to be presented to each new teacher.

These families can make an important contribution to the local educational program, as a result of their experience and travel in connection with seasonal employment. In order that every opportunity may be given migrant children to use the educational facilities in Pennsylvania and in order that our children may profit from the experience of these transitory children, the attached suggested letter of welcome and instruction has been prepared for distribution to these seasonal workers. Will you be kind enough to make arrangements for the distribution of this letter.

ents to distribute to growers in their area. It was written in Spanish. Following is a translation of the letter. It was addressed to migrant agricultural workers and given to the workers by sugar company representatives at the time workers were hired.

To New Agricultural Workers in Morgan
County
Welcome:

The schools of Morgan County welcome you and your family to Colorado.

your

We invite you to send your children to school. The ranch owner for whom you work can tell you to what school you should send children. We want you to know that your children will be welcome to our schools although they remain only a few weeks of this school term. Send them to the school although they may not have attended regularly anywhere else.

They can wear everyday clothes. Our children here use jeans or clothes that can be washed.

We hope your children will like our schools so that you will send them again to begin the next term, that is, in September.

If you have questions see any one of the superintendents whose names are printed at the bottom of this letter.

(Signed by all the superintendents of the schools involved.)

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction has likewise prepared a letter for distribution by local school superintendents to migrant families.

To Workers Located in Pennsylvania During the Planting and Harvesting Seasons and Who Have Children of School Age: Welcome to the Schools of Pennsylvania:

Each year there are many families who come to Pennsylvania to help plant and harvest crops such as peas, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, apples, peaches, and grapes. Without your help, many of these crops could not be planted and harvested. While you are in Pennsylvania we welcome you to our schools. Your children with their wide travel experience and knowledge of crop raising in various parts of the country can be of help to the children in our local schools and at the same time your children will benefit from attending our schools.

The School Laws of Pennsylvania offer your children free public school education. It is your duty and privilege to send them

to school and it is the duty of the schools to accept them.

Your children should have the following records with them in order to enter school in Pennsylvania.

(1) Official record of the date of birth (2) Vaccination certificate Also, it would help the Pennsylvania school to serve your children better if it had the following records:

(1) Transfer card

(2) Health and dental record
(3) Personal health history

(4) Other available school records Maybe you have brought these with you. If you have not, have your children come to school anyway and we will help you get the necessary records. We are sure that you will help our schools to get these records.

If you do not have a folder for these records, ask the teacher or principal in the first school your child enters in Pennsylvania to give you one. When you move, these records must either be mailed by the teacher to the next school or given to you to give to the teacher in the next school. Take these records with you wherever you go, so that children can make the change from one your school to another without any trouble or delay.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed by local School Superintendents.)

The use of letters to teachers, to school officials, and to parents of migrant children is of course only one aspect of a broader program for getting migrant children in school. Since, however, it is an important aspect it has been highlighted in this article. Perhaps the letters may be adapted for use in other communities where migrant children are present.

International Core

(Continued from page 36)

current intellectual diet to include materials now almost totally lacking. There should be a revival of interest in languages, and such languages should be taught as early in the school program as experiments indicate to be practicable in our culture. The variety of languages could also be broadened on all levels.

Basically, there should be an international core in every level, from the elementary grades through the 16th year of formal schooling. In grades 1 to 6 I would suggest that this could be achieved generally without much change in the curriculum, but through textbooks and teaching aids, and experiences which bring the children more authentic impressions and information about the world outside America and Western Europe. Experiments in language teaching in elementary schools are now in progress in many cities, including Washington, D. C. These will help us learn how early our schools can profitably begin the teaching of languages.

I would suggest that in junior and senior high school languages should receive a greater emphasis, that literature classes include more great literature in translation, that the social sciences be oriented towards introducing the student to the world as a whole rather than to a part of the world. There might be courses in world geography and elementary anthropology, and the history courses should pay more attention to the Far East, the Arabic nations, South Asia, and South America.

In college, I suggest the development of a solid international core which would be required of all undergraduates, perhaps 16 semester hours in geography, anthropology, world history, comparative government, linguistics, and literature and philosophy in translation.

We should not face another great military crisis as poorly prepared as we were in 1941 to live and to fight in remote regions most Americans will never see. We should be better prepared than we are to accept our responsibility in peacetime in a world in transition. Education has a major responsibility to prepare our young people to live and to work effectively in a world in constant change.

What America has achieved she owes in a large measure to her schools. Our educational system, from the early cross-roads school to the land-grant university, has been functional. As each new social challenge has appeared, educational statesmen have developed solutions and have met the challenge.

Today, in the time of our greatest national crisis, our educational statesmen face their greatest opportunity to serve the American people.

America-Alert!

(Continued from page 37)

myriad of other ways, youth will search out the scientific aspects of disaster radio broadcasting.

Studies of outcome from CONELRAD techniques are appropriate for more mature school, college, and graduate school students. For example: (1) An investigation might be made of the beneficial results obtained by maintaining one-way communication with persons who are safely outside of danger; (2) research might be conducted to determine emotional effect of particular broadcast voices; (3) studies might be made of the effectiveness of selected spoken scripts, or of various musical renditions in dissipating listeners' tensions; or (4) scholarly consideration might be given to the social implications in the CONELRAD plan and the methods by which it may be put into action.

CONELRAD provides interesting resources for discovering and teaching constructive social attitudes and skills at all levels of maturity. It offers to education a facet of protective citizenship in action and an opportunity to perform a tangible service for national security.

Class Size

(Continued from page 39)

In California 29.5 percent fewer candidates completed their teacher training with a major in English in 1953 than in 1952. Furthermore, nearly half of the graduates who qualify for teaching in some States do not enter the profession.5

There is no easy way out of the class size and teacher load predicament. More facts, especially in local schools and communities, need to be obtained and studied in relation to teaching effectiveness. These facts need to be considered by the school administration and parents of children in school. Future gains in enrollment need to be predicted and plans made to care for them. Finally, since high school English classes are likely to remain large or become even larger, a new emphasis seems desirable in the preservice and inservice training of English teachers. That emphasis is the development of professional competencies in teachers so that they will be able to instruct large classes of pupils efficiently and effectively.

no attempt to show these variations, but indicates only the average unit costs for the regions by type of school and type of construction. In some regions the more extensive construction programs in 1 or 2 States were important factors in determining regional averages, hence the averages by regions cannot be presumed to reflect accurately the unit costs in any specific State. The regions used for compiling data for this report are shown below.

Tables 3, 4, and 5 show a summary of the number of school buildings included in this report, the number of classrooms, the average cost per square foot, the average cost of total building per classroom,

and the average building gross floor area per classroom. These are divided on the bases of types of construction, types of schools, and regional location.

For the schools reported in these tables, the secondary school building costs per classroom are higher than those for elementary schools. This was not necessarily true for costs per square foot. The secondary schools included in this report have 40 to 50 percent more gross area per classroom than do the elementary schools. The number of combustible secondary school buildings probably was insufficient to provide valid averages.

* Ibid., p. 289–291.

provement centers will be established. South Carolina has a new bulletin in science in the planning stage. Next summer it intends to hold a workshop.

South Dakota says its science is carried on in connection with the social studies course, and uses in-service conferences to improve the teaching.

Tennessee has published a curriculum framework for grades 1-12. It was cooperatively developed. All schools have inservice programs.

Texas encourages local schools to write their own curriculum guides. A large number of places are giving particular emphasis to the area of social studies and science. The State department is building a file of material on science in the central office which is available on loan to schools.

Utah has a separately published bulletin on science teaching in the elementary school. Vermont reports extension courses from teachers colleges are serving to improve their elementary science teaching. Washington State indicates that it has sponsored workshops in the area of atomic energy and conservation and has published bulletins in both of these areas.

West Virginia contemplates work on improvement of science instruction and is placing a growing emphasis on relating science to everyday living. In-service education is emphasized.

Wisconsin has a statewide curriculum group at work on preparation of material. There are several local committees.

Wyoming has a bulletin on elementary science in preparation. The bulletin will be studied by teachers at in-service meetings throughout the State. Their monthly bulletin contains frequent articles on science.

New Section for Guidance

and Pupil Personnel

Establishment of a new Guidance and Pupil-Personnel Section in the Office of Education was recently announced.

This new unit's program will include studies and research in the techniques of guidance and pupil-personnel work. It will give attention to the important new

relationships between such work and the development of modern curriculums. The pupil-personnel phase will include cooperation with such disciplines as those of social work, medicine, and psychology, so as to bring about the most effective integration in these related fields.

On all matters of guidance and pupil per

sonnel for elementary and secondary schools, this section's staff will work with relevant personnel in State departments of education, institutions engaged in counselor preparation, and professional organizations. The section will cooperate also with other Federal and State agencies which have elements in their programs related to

its field of work and responsibility.

Chief of the new section is Harry A. Jager. Other Office of Education specialists assigned to the section are Leonard M. Miller and David A. Segel. The section is a part of the Division of State and Local School Systems directed by Wayne O. Reed, Assistant Commissioner.

Bibliography on Personality and Social Development of the Child, Compiled by Christoph Heinicke and Selected Ethnographic Sources on Child Training, Compiled by Beatrice Blyth Whiting. New York, Social Science Research Council, 1953. 130 p. (Social Science Research Council, Pamphlet 10.) $1.

Counseling and Guidance. By The Junior Council of the Ohio State University. Columbus, The Ohio State University, 1951. 41. p.

Current Books: Senior Booklist of the Secondary Education Board. Milton, Mass., Secondary Education Board, 1951. 42 p. Illus. $0.25.

Diagnosing Human Relations Needs. By Hilda Taba, Elizabeth Hall Brady, John T. Robinson, and William E. Vickery. Washington, American Council on Education, 1951. 153 p. (Studies in Intergroup Relations.)

$1.75.

Off-Campus Student Teaching. 1951 Yearbook of The Association for Student Teaching. Prepared by the Yearbook Committee. Edited by Morton S. Malter and Troy L. Stearns. Lock Haven, Pa., The Association for Student Teaching, State Teachers College, 1951. 205 p. $2.00. (Order from: Allen D. Patterson, Executive Secretary of the Association for Student Teaching, State Teachers College, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.)

Opportunities for Education in the Next Decade. Proceedings of the Co-operative Conference for Administrative Officers of Public and Private Schools, Northwestern University-The University of Chicago, 1951. Compiled by and edited by E. T. McSwain and Jack R. Childress. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1951. 112 p. $3.25.

Practical Guidance Methods for Counselors, Teachers and Administrators. By Robert H. Knapp. New York, McGrawHill Book Company, Inc., 1953. 320 p. $4.25.

Promotion Ideas For Public Libraries. Written and Illustrated by Sarah Leslie Wallace. Chicago, American Library Association, 1953. 82 p. $1.50.

Recreation in the American Community. By Howard G. Danford. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1953. 464 p. $5.

School Health Services . . . A Report of the Joint Committee on Health Problems in Education of the National Education Asso

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1954

ciation and the American Medical Association with the Cooperation of Contributors and Consultants. Charles C. Wilson, Editor. Washington, D. C. National Education Association and American Medical Association, 1953. 486 p. Illus. $5.

They Found a Way. Report of National Conference on Safety Education in Elementary Schools, Indiana University, August 18-22, 1952. Washington, D. C., National Commission on Safety Education, National Education Association, 1953. 32 p. Illus. 35 cents.

Thoughts Along the Way. By Walter E. Myer. Washington, D. C., Hugh BirchHorace Mann Fund, The National Education Association of the United States, 1953. 222 p. $2.

University Extension in the United States. A Study by the National University Extension Association, Made with the Assistance of a Grant from the Fund for Adult Education. John R. Morton, Director. Birming. ham, University of Alabama Press, 1953. 144 p. Cloth $2.25. Paper $1.

You Can Teach Music, A Handbook for the Classroom Teacher. By Paul Wentworth Mathews. New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1953. 178 p. Illus. $3.75.

Your School Clubs, A Complete Guide to 500 Activities for Group Leaders and Members. By Nellie Zetta Thompson. New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1953. 317 p. $3.50.

SCHOOL LIFE, December 1953