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Celebrating 150 Years

Fall 1951
Annual Report

Big Business - - Our Responsibilities  - -  Need for New Facilities  - -
Something About Costs - - In the Classrooms  - -School and Community

In the Classrooms                                         - - - As Printed in  1951      1951   "FACING the fact that most of our pupils will end their formal education when they graduate from high school, the Schenectady public schools' primary goals are: to promote a sound working knowledge of the Three R's and other basic subjects; to encourage children to reach decisions on the basis of fact rather than opinion; to provide opportunities for youngsters to work together; to share and to respect the rights of others; to develop an active interest in the world around them. Programs are designed to meet the needs of all children - the slow learners and the fast learners, the gifted and the average.  When new studies are undertaken the teacher begins with something the children already know.  Progression from the familiar to the unfamiliar is a teaching principle used everywhere - with children and adults alike.  The first words written by six-year-olds may be "mother," "daddy," "house," and their own name.  They do not begin writing by copying a list of words from the blackboard. As studies are built upon what a child already knows, a need soon arises to add to the youngster's  educational experiences.  A study of transportation - with group discussions, the writing of compositions, the working of related arithmetic problems - will mean more to the young people if at one time in their lives they have taken a train ride.  A study of England or Germany, tieing together such basic subjects as geography, history, reading and writing, will mean more if persons from those countries can come in and talk to them. Children have an intense curiosity.  Satisfying it keeps them interested and helps them learn.  In all the elementary schools teachers and pupils plan field trips to museum, farms, government offices - to scores of places in Schenectady and to a few outside the city.  Reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic - all the basic subjects are given new meaning and added interest.  Classroom compositions, practical arithmetic problems, discussions on the way people live and work together are outgrowths of such projects.  Drill is needed too, but rarely does it have to be dull. Sometimes a teacher will have to "lay down the law," but in most instances she and the youngsters work together in planning and carrying out classroom work.  Children in Schenectady's public schools are allowed some freedom to make decisions and to act according to hose decisions - always under close supervision of the classroom teacher.  They learn that freedom means added responsibility, not license.  Given increased opportunity for self-direction, each child develops a greater sense of responsibility for his own discipline."