Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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16 NORLMAL OFFERINZG mar grades. Opportunity for observation in all grades is now given to Class B. Randolph, Wareham and Middleboro have added three schools to the district for practice teaching. Standish Manor School, Halifax, is open to students interested in speech defects and other special problems of that school. C. A. N. DRAMATIZATION. HE Reading Department has been emphasizing the Work of dramatization throughout the grades. The students are taught to recognize the dramatic element in all literature taught as reading lessons in the grades and to develop the dramatic in- stinct in children. So much of the teaching of reading is merely a process for in- crasing the child's reading vocabulary and not an interpretation of the thought and feeling of an author. Dramatizing is reading in the fullest sense. After the child has pictured in his imagination the thoughts and ideas of the author and has shown by oral reading that he has pictured the scene, he then dramatizes the scene, thus from reading about the actor, he becomes the actor. This is realistic reading. It also serves as a means for the teacher to ascertain the real conception of the child which cannot always be obtained from the oral read- mg. This Work is especially helpful in the Junior High School Where the child has reached the self-conscious stage. In developing the dramatic instinct in children, We make them forget themselves. We train them in unconscious reasoning for it is the insight of one mind into another. . A It has been said that all sympathy, all union of ourselves With the ideals and struggles of our race are tracable to imagination and dramatic instinct. L. A. M. LITERATURE DEPARTMENT. HE Literature Department is equipped With its own library of reference and text-books for use in classes preparing to teach in elementary and grammar grades. This departmental library includes stories, such as King Arthur and Arabian Nights, for reading in children's classes, books of children's poems to be

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NoRMAL OFFERING 15 THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. BRIEFLY stated the scope of the work in this course includes C13 general foundation for the first year, C25 specialized work on majors and general work on minors for the second and third years. The groups we have adopted, each subject in a group being a major, are these: 1. Geography, history, and civics. 2. Geography, science Cgeneralj. 3. Mathematics, science. 4. English, history and civics. 5. English, geography. 6. English, a modern language. 7. Special combinations of any of the above subjects with gardening or playground work or athletics. The student elects one group. The required professional studies, psychology, school management, practice teaching, etc., are also majors. It should be understood that this grouping having for its aim preparation for departmental teaching is tentative in the sense that further light is likely to be shed upon our problems as we try out these plans, and prompt modification or readjustment will re- sult from suggestions of sound experience. C. R. S. NATURE STUDY. HE elementary course is economic. The aim is to give pupils the power to plan, plant and cultivate a vegetable garden. To do this, they must test seeds, know and destroy weeds, recog- nize helpful and harmful insects, know the elements of plant physiology. The intermediate course devotes two terms to biology and one to gardening. The elective second year includes grafting, budding, pruning, production of ornamental plants, supervision of school gardens, plans for school grounds. The kindergarten course prepares the students to use the nature study outline in Bulletin No. 14 of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. F. I. D. PRACTICAL TRAINING. TUDENTS in the elementary and kindergarten-primary depart- ments began observation in the training school Sept. 1917, as a means of emphasizing the vocational character of the Normal School Courses. An afternoon session of the kindergarten has re- opened that grade for observation. Departmental work incident to Junior High School organization is presented in the upper gram-

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NORMAL oFFER1NG 17 used as memory, selections, myths-Norse, Greek and nature, the best reference books on mythology, a small but choice collection of photographs of mythological subjects, readers and classic stories appropriate to the upper grades. A new feature of the Literature Department will be a course for teachers of the Junior High School with books suitable for use in these grades. The department purposes to train teachers in methods of in- teresting children in the literature studied in school that they may form the habit of making companions of good books outside of school. E. M. M. ART DEPARTMENT. HE aim of the Art Department is three fold. First it tries to develop some technical skill by giving all students in the entering classes practice in drawing, designing, lettering and color-theory. At the end of this year all are expected to have attained enough understanding of the technique of drawing to be able to apply their knowledge to the desired methods of teaching it to children. In the second year, therefore, the second aim is em- phasized, that of teaching drawing. Methods, with the analysis of these methods in the written plan, and the practical application of them in the Model school practice form the basis of the work. The technique of drawing is maintained as far as the student, through self-discipline, is able to maintain it. It is felt that now the student hasbecome the student-teacher and should begin to assume the responsibility of sustaining her efforts and keeping up her work to the required standard. The time for drill is passed, she has now entered the world of active self-development. The third aim, that of developing artistic appreciation and the ability to give beauty to art expression, underlies all the work of both years, and the principles of beauty, order, harmony, bal- ance and rhythm are emphasized constantly through the course in Picture Study. All classes are brought in contact given in the second year with the work of the masters of painting, and the three-year students have the advantage of a special course in art appreciation applied to home making. This course includes a study of architectual forms, house planning and interior decora- tion. M. B. S.