Warren High School - Echoes Yearbook (Warren, OH)

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ECTHOES A DEFINITION OF EDUCATION. The education of its youth is the greatest task, the finest 'i i'a e and the keenest test of any generation. It is not therefore, that every generation has embodied if ed a conception of education in the-form of a Beauty, strength, intellect, complete living, fag ' to environment, are some of the successive out- . f ' wphasis in these historic statements. Uewey, of Columbia University, in his hook, I idKEducation, has framed the most compre- A for education known to our generation. , 'efation as freeing capacity for continuous rfl social aims. This statement is ,tgp f1.,...a.nental fact that self-expansion comes ' ' cpression and that other equally funda- ',: arrive at a conception of self only r ' r of others. er the number of homes and schools where , . ated childhood, we realize how far we tight road when we understand the first word J. .,, Dewey's definition. To set free an individual in oruer et.. t he may achieve his larger and better self is the very beginning of education. A man, walking through the Woodland, found a plant that had, in forcing its way up through the leaf-mould, grown through an old leaf which strangled the plant. The man tore the leaf away and set the plant free to grow. He was a true teacher. A boy, re- sponsive to the distant strains of the national anthem, arose in the midst of a lesson on decimals and stood at attention, free to express his expanding self. Where such freedom of expression exists, there is teaching and a school. Where that opportunity is not created, there is no teaching and no school. The true teacher is a liberator, not a creator. He is unable to set free a power that does not exist. The processes and materials of education must be 'adapted to the inherent abilities and capacities of the individual. For centuries school administrators and teachers assumed that there is an average child and all children must conform to a certain average ability. All were forced through the same curri- culum and, failing to meet the standards of the supposed average child, were turned aside as hopeless. Now, we know there is no type-child to whose standards all others must be brought. We no longer attempt to educate a child through the lock-step of deadly uniformity. We want to know his inherent individual capacities' and, beginning with them, help him to the fullest possible expression of them. The school must, therefore, know the child's differing powers and abi- lities and provide a wide variety of types of opportunity for growth. V The school is concerned with those fundamental interests that, when properly set free, will continue indefinitely. The little spasms and spurts of effort and interest are not the real concern of the school. Nor is the school especially in- terested in the individual apart from his contribution to the common good. This definition of education sweeps through the past and brings us all the best from that long journey. But it also looks far to the future and will for many decades be an in- spiration and a challenge to a renewed effort to make our educational practices square with our educational ideals. H. B. TURNER, Supt. Warren School! A