The School System of Norway Part 15

sounds a warning note, crying out against the present tendencies which are taking from the flower of womankind thousands who are eminently fitted for motherhood, "woman's essential function on the globe," and diverting their lives to other and less n.o.ble pursuits. "It is therefore essential to the race," say the authors, "that the ablest, healthiest, and finest women should be encouraged, tempted, compelled, if necessary, by circ.u.mstances to devote themselves to family life by becoming wives and mothers, and it is doubtful how far it is expedient to draw them off, even for a time to other occupations."[33]

While co-education is in agreement with conditions of family life, is economic, and continues to be entirely practicable, the question still remains whether there may not be justification in a demand for certain fundamental differences to be made in adapting educational means and matter to the two s.e.xes. Co-education, however, may continue without making the education of the s.e.xes identical. In fact it is very easily possible to make the education of the s.e.xes fundamentally different even though both inst.i.tutions and cla.s.s activities are co-educational in practice. A difference in the amount of work in certain groups of subjects required of men and women, respectively, might furnish a satisfying solution of this question. And if there are certain branches of study which should belong exclusively to one or the other of the s.e.xes, it is a simple matter to separate for such work. On the whole it seems to the writer highly advisable to educate the s.e.xes together as far as possible.

THE SCHOOL YEAR

The regular school year in Norway has forty weeks of six days each. The plan of having school on Sat.u.r.days furnishes an additional day of fruitful, well directed activity to the children, who might otherwise be permitted to spend the time in idleness or misguided conduct.

In America we have so many vacations and holidays that our schools are in session only about 75 or 80 per cent of the time utilized in Norway.

We may be justified in having the long summer vacations because of the inconvenience and depletion of strength occasioned by the heat, but several of our vacations during the year and the practice of having no school on Sat.u.r.days are inheritances without much justification. School activities, when rightly conducted, should be invigorating and exhilarating instead of producing a state of prolonged fatigue requiring seasons of inactivity or other changes in order to regain lost vitality.

Again, the relaxation occasioned by diversion of thought and change of activity on Sunday is certainly sufficient to counteract any necessity of using Sat.u.r.day for recuperation. It appears evident that we are not as frugal in this matter as sound judgment demands that we should be.

SCHOOL LUNCHES

It has been found that mental activity is very greatly affected by conditions of nutrition. The quality, quant.i.ty, and preparation of foods, together with regularity in eating, determine to a considerable extent what may be the progress of the pupil in his growth, both mental and physical. The child who is improperly fed or underfed is thereby handicapped, while the one who receives intelligent care along the same line is placed at a distinct advantage.

That in all large cities there are hundreds and thousands of underfed children is a fact of common knowledge. In many cities provisions have been made for supplying at least one meal per day free of charge to all needy pupils. Norway has been in the forefront in this paternalistic movement. Several of her cities have undertaken this n.o.ble work and probably no city in the world can boast of more adequate facilities for carrying it on than Christiania.

They purchase the best procurable quality of the most nutritious food, prepare it in a wholesome and palatable manner, and send it out from a central kitchen to the several primary schools of the city in such quant.i.ties as are needed to liberally supply the demands. The food is served hot in the regular lunch rooms absolutely free to all children whose parents ask it and at first cost to others. This work in Christiania is typical of the provisions made in other cities but the equipment, and possibly the system of distribution, is superior to that found elsewhere.

In addition to this, nutritious and easily digested foods and drinks are provided at other schools and served at a moderate cost in the lunch rooms at stated hours in the day. This latter provision is generally in charge of the family of the janitor of the building and is most common in the private and secondary schools to which the previously mentioned plan does not extend.

Experiment has demonstrated in our own land that it is entirely practicable to provide at a minimum cost warm, well-cooked, wholesome foods to either supplement or replace the cold indigestible lunches so commonly carried by school children. The cities and towns enjoy few if any advantages over the rural districts in this regard. The plan is workable and advisable, and it should be more commonly adopted.

COMPARATIVE ATTAINMENTS

In the study of the school system of Norway it is interesting to compare the school life and attainments of the pupils with those of American children. It is true that until we have established norms for measuring the results of education, we cannot make accurate statements regarding the relative standing of pupils nor estimate precisely their accomplishments. However, we are able to single out some features of importance and compare them in a general way.

It has been noted that the Norwegian pupils begin school at seven years of age, while the American children commence at five or six. Many prominent educators believe that our American children start to school too young. They are of the opinion that their development, physical and mental, would be better if they did not begin formal school work until at least seven or eight years of age. The greater physical development of the Norwegians, due to their later start, gives them a distinct advantage. Their bodily strength and vigor supplement and aid their mental growth.

Pa.s.sing through Norway's successive grades of school to the completion of the gymnasium requires twelve years. The same length of time is used in reaching graduation from our American high school. Now it is generally conceded that a graduate of the gymnasium in Norway is two years in advance of a graduate of the American high school; or in other words a student entering the university from Norway's gymnasial course has an education equivalent to that of an individual entering the junior year of work in an American college or university. Some would rank the Norwegian even higher than I have here suggested; however, only a very general comparison can be made.

In consideration of these conditions the question arises: How shall we account for the fact that we use two extra years in order to reach approximately the same standard? It is recalled that the Norwegian entering school at seven and progressing at the normal rate are ready for university work at nineteen while the Americans begin two years earlier in order to reach the same attainments at the same age. If the Norwegian pupils accomplish as much in twelve years, beginning at seven years of age, as our American children do in fourteen years, commencing at five, should we rest satisfied, or should we modify our system so as to profit by their experience? Why permit traditions or precedent to rob us of choice benefits within our reach?

Again, the students entering the Norwegian university are older and more mature both physically and mentally than are ours. Being older, their habits of life are more definitely formed, and they are better fitted to undertake the responsibility of self-direction. It has been suggested by some that we extend the work of the high school in order to keep our children under parental guidance until they are sufficiently mature to care for themselves at less hazard.

The course pursued by Norwegian pupils is uniform for all until the last two years of the secondary school, when certain branches of study may be chosen for major attention. When students start to the university they enter immediately upon specialized lines of work and pursue them to their limits. The American pupils are privileged to elect a considerable proportion of their secondary school work, yet they do not generally specialize at all until their junior year in college; frequently they postpone definite specialization until the beginning of graduate courses.

Fundamental social characteristics enter into educational ideals, and each nation, very naturally, develops a system of schools peculiarly adapted to its needs. There are, of course, general underlying principles which operate in all educational systems and place them on similar bases; there are also certain features, essential in the make-up of the individual systems, which are not common. These peculiar factors give distinctive character to the various systems and are of telling effect in determining their excellencies. Whether these special phases affect the life and accomplishments of the pupils, the nature of their work, the management of school affairs, or other educational activities; they render the different systems almost impossible of comparison.

However, they are suggestive, and frequently they may be modified and used in improving the systems of other countries.

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION

Every successful teacher presents his subject in conformity with some universal principles of method. While these cannot be mechanically systematized and used according to unchanging rules, they form a necessary part of an instructor's equipment. The teacher who knows the subject and is master of the technique of instruction is sure of success, while the one without method will fail.

It seems that the pedagogues of Norway have formed a happy combination of some methods of instruction. They appreciate the value of the cla.s.s meeting and with them "teaching goes on chiefly in what we call the _recitation_. This is the teacher's point of contact with his pupils; here he meets them face to face and mind to mind; here he succeeds or fails in his function of teaching."[34]

The excellence of the work of instruction in Germany has long been recognized. That "the German teacher teaches" is very generally known.

He transcends all texts and is an authority on the subjects he presents.

By pedagogic training he has been exalted to a place of eminence in his profession. It is possible that they over-emphasize the work of the instructor and neglect the part that pupils should play.

In America various methods of instruction are in use. One plan is to regard teacher and pupils as cooperators in activities wherein interests are common. The teacher, having had experience, exercises control and serves as chief guide through the most critical places in the way of progress. So far as possible the pupils are encouraged to exercise individual initiative and to become independent. They are not to be merely recipients from the teacher's vast store of knowledge, but with him they are to become genuine partic.i.p.ators in the world's thoughts and activities.

Another plan in all too common use may be designated as the "text book method." According to it the major portion of information comes from the voluminous, logically developed, well-arranged, and somewhat attractively printed and bound readable text. The function of the teacher is largely testing knowledge gained from books, a.s.signing lessons in the text, supplementing the work of the pupils from his own store or by reference to other works on the subject, and stimulating them to earnest effort in every possible way.

President Hall would not regard this text book plan of work as very worthy procedure. He writes that some teachers take time "telling pupils what to do and testing to see if they have done it. But this is not teaching; but a device of ignorance, laziness, or physical weakness, or all combined. The real teacher teaches and reduces recitation to a minimum. Whoever has visited the best continental schools or studied comparatively such national educational exhibitions as those of St.

Louis must have been acutely impressed with the fact that we exhibit what the pupil does, Europe what the teacher does. Here he says, 'Go, do this, and prove to me that you have done it.' There he says, 'Come, let us study together; I know and will inform, interest and inspire you to go on.'"[35]

The instructors in the schools of Norway are true teachers but they do not rely wholly upon their own activity. The text finds a place not so large as in American schools but of some consequence. The pupils are privileged to act on their own initiative to some extent though they are not granted unlimited freedom. They cooperate with the teachers in many lines of school work where they find interest and profit. Demonstration is largely in the hands of the teachers. The testing of lessons studied is a common exercise with them, and their cla.s.s hours are given to intensive activity in which every individual member is expected to be a partic.i.p.ant and contributor. They, like we in America, aim to suit instruction to pupils of average ability rather than to the brightest as they do in Germany and France.

CONTINUITY OF EFFORT

By referring to the programs of work arranged for the successive years in the schools of Norway, one readily sees that there is but little variation in subjects of study from the first grades of the primary school to the completion of the gymnasium. The change of greatest importance is the introduction of foreign languages--German and English the first and second years in the middle schools and French the first year in the gymnasium.

When the child enters school he begins subjects of study which represent the several fields of knowledge. The teaching aims to keep him in touch with these in ways adapted to his stage of development. As the pupil grows the scope of each subject enlarges. They advance together. Keeping the subject definitely in mind for a long time tends to the creation of permanent interests and at the same time makes possible its a.s.similation into the very life of the learner. It becomes vital and usable after being acted upon in the various stages and conditions of life through which the child pa.s.ses. Inter-relations and a.s.sociations with other subjects of study and various phases of life are affected, which give to it distinct values. Too often we find in our own schools that hurried and intensive study of certain subjects does not create permanent interests nor prove of real worth.

If natural forces in the child are recognized and utilized they facilitate the learning process and make school activities profitable and delightful. It is a well attested fact that at certain periods in the psychological development of a child mastery of special phases of learning is easy for him. Courses of study and plans of instruction should be prepared in such a way that the different phases of work included may be presented and stressed while the nascent period of interest is on.

We Americans are given to dividing a subject into its separate phases, studying them consecutively for short periods of time, and then forgetting them. The plan is wasteful and unpedagogic. Note the manner in which we break up the work in mathematics and in the mother tongue.

It is questionable whether there be a single valid argument favoring such practice.

The Norwegians present mathematics as a single and comprehensive subject. The same is true in their teaching of the mother tongue. The plan is advantageous from every view point. It is certainly conducive to economy of time and efficient results. Instead of breaking up subjects of instruction and isolating their several phases from each other, we ought rather to keep them intact and set about coordinating the several branches of instruction as closely as possible.

Education should seek to a.s.sociate and interrelate the truths we obtain and to organize our knowledge into an effectual system. The formation of a comprehensive curriculum, with arrangements for its presentation in harmony with sound psychological and pedagogical principles, is a matter of pressing importance.

While the school systems of the present are evidently superior to what any past generation has known, yet the investigations of psychologists and educationists stress the fact that in many ways they are weak and inefficient. The acc.u.mulated experience of the past needs overhauling by masters with insight and foresight. Educational methods and principles which have been tested and proven worthy should be put into operation.

Each nation should devise and adopt the most perfect educational system possible, and this then should be carried into execution by an army of qualified teachers responsive to the call for truly consecrated service.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Erichsen, A. E., _Bergers Kathedralskoles Historie_.

Hertzberg, N., _Paedagogiskens Historie_.

Holst, Axel, _Skolehygiene_.

Monroe, W. S., In Viking Land. Norway: Its People, Its Fjords and Its Fjelds.

Paludan, J., _Det Hoiere Skolevaesen i Danmark, Norge og Sverig_.