4I Today's realism demands a re.examination of the teaching of skills

The Ivory Towers FallWALTER A. ANDERSON and EDWARD A. KRUG

THIS WAR has brought a new measureof realism into the educational pro-grams of millions of children and youth.Insistent demands from educational or-ganizations, government officials, andlocal community leaders for full schoolcooperation in the war effort are beinganswered vigorously in the affirmative.

The schools are providing pre-induc-tion training for the armed forces, pre-paring workers for -war industry, col-lecting scrap, selling stamps and bonds,helping with rationing, caring for thechildren of working mothers, assistingin harvesting crops, promoting physicalfitness, teaching conservation, and aretaking an active part in community warservices of all kinds. Of course, thesedemands and services are affecting thecurriculum and teaching procedures.Some fields of study are necessarilybeing neglected in order to give timeto the more pressing war needs. Usuallyhowever, the eliminations are dead-wood which no longer has value in edu-

Walter A. Anderson and Edward A. Krug,both of the School of Education of the Uni.versity of Montana. Missoula, present onthese pages a searching analysis of some ofthe most heatedly debated topics in educa-tion today. They evaluate the currentdemand for competence in useful skills.They ask-and answer-the question, Doesthe demand for skills mean a reversal ofmodern educational viewpoints? In con-cluding their discussion, the authors pointto both the dangers and the opportunitiesthat go with the present emphasis upon theskills.

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cational programs; many additions andchanges promise a more realistic schooloffering.

Militarv leaders, representatives ofgovernment, and the lay public are notsatisfied with schools that are isolatedfrom the realities of these trying times.They are demanding education in newskills and better preparation in old oneswhich swill be useful now in the warvears and also in the postwar period.This article analyzes these new de-mands for useful skills and points theway to their fulfillment.

It is our responsibility as educatorsand laymen to evaluate the current de-mand for skills. Only in this way can,we find a valid basis for modifying andredirecting the school program.

Wartime places a premium on per-formance, on delivering the goods-inindustry, in education, and in the armedforces. It is this demand for perform-ance and doing that is undermining theivory towers of education today. Thebasis of adequate performance is com-petence or skill. This is the real reasonfor the outcry for the skills, and it is agood one. Nor is the outcry less validfor having been joined by those whoseek to discredit the gains and progressof modem education.

Although the times place stress ondoing, we must ask, "Doing what?"And also we need to inquire, "Who'sgoing to be doing it?" So the evalua-tion of the demand for the skills involves

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an analysis of the skills which arereally needed and some indication ofwhat people are needing them.

Skills Needed in the Armed Forces

To begin with, there is the group ofyoung men who are being called to as-sume the responsibilities of armed serv-ice. If the young draftee is to go to thefighting front as a replacement aftera relatively short period of basic train-ing, the least the high school or collegecan do is to provide him with basicskills which will help assure effectiveservice and survival.

What do these men need as theyenter the forces? On this point therehas been much misinformation and con-fusion. Shortlyv after Pearl Harbor, someenthusiastic school administrators be-gan issuing manifestoes ordering everysenior boy to take physics, mathematics,or shop work. One principal decidedthat the students in his school neededmilitary snap and discipline. So instruc-tions went out ordering the adoptionof military courtesy. If a teacher saw apiece of paper on the floor, he was tocommand a student to pick it up. Thestudent would salute, pick up the paper,throw it in the waste basket, return,salute again, and say, "The paper hasbeen disposed of, sir!" Others jumpedto the conclusion that the Armywanted close-order, infantry drill andproposed to put in squads right, squadsleft, and the manual of arms.

Fortunately, the Army has clarifiedits position and its needs, and there isnow no excuse for misunderstanding.Here is a statement of Army needs:'

1 Brigadier General Joe N. Dalton: "What doesthe Army Expect From the Schools," MontanaEduration, September, 1943, 6-7.

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i. Every prospective inductee must un-derstand the issues of the war andwhat is at stake.2. Every prospective inductee must un-derstand the nature of military life.3. Every prospective inductee must bephysically fit.4. Every prospective inductee must havecommand of basic language skills.5. Every prospective inductee must havecommand of basic computation skills.6. The Army needs competent, efficientspecialists.

The first five points apply to allyouth entering the Army, and they em-phasize the importance of a sound,general education program. But whatabout the need for "competent, efficientspecialists"? There are many kinds ofspecialists in the Army. Only thoseboys who have scores in the upper 20per cent on scho! tic aptitude tests areslated for highly technical training asengineers, personnel directors, languageexperts, and so on. It is for this groupthat pre-induction work of an advancednature, in the sciences, mathematics,and foreign languages is important. Butfor most of the other 80o per cent, thespecialties are different. The need is togive them "practical skills in such fieldsas radio, electricity, automotive me-chanics, shop work, or machines-skillswhich provide a basis for further train-ing in a wide variety of specialized armyjobs." 2 Nor should we forget the Armyspecialists who use non-mechanicalskills-the clerks in the quartermastercorps, aides in the medical corps, andthose who assist with interviewing andclassification of new men.

2Stanford School of Education Institutes onEducation in Wartime: "What Pre-lnduction Train-ing Is Needed." (Based on information providedby the Civilian Pre-Induction Training Branch ofthe War Department.)

Eduetional Leadership

Regardless of this Army viewpoint,there were more boys enrolled in pre-induction physics in the nation's highschools in February, 1943, than in anyother type of course with the exceptionof pre-induction physical fitness.3 Whilephysics courses enrolled 320,408, funda-mentals of shop work claimed only163,112, and radio code practice (re-peatedly stressed by the Army as anarea of tremendous shortage) enrolledonly 6o,ooo.

The Army's position with regard toskills of military discipline is of signifi-cance to workers in education:

"The modem army is a well-disci-plined army. Each soldier, after his in-duction, is taught military courtesy andmilitary discipline. It is not necessaryfor schools to impose military disci-pline as preparation for army life, but itis helpful if students are assisted to seeall discipline as arising out of needs ofdemocratic group living, and if they seemilitary discipline as arising out of theneeds of a 'Citizen's Army' which has amilitary job to do."4

Skills Needed by All Citizens

Total war places many demands onsoldiers and civilians alike that are notinvolved in the special demands forcompetence in the armed forces.

i. Skills of w'orking together demo-cratically on comnton problems. Com-munity wartime problems create newneeds for skills of cooperative, demo-cratic living. We are all in this war to-gether, and must present unity of effort.This demands cooperation. Skills neededrange from those involved in leadingcommunity endeavors to those necessaryin simple family recreations and day-to-

3 Ibid.4 Ibid.

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day associations with fellow-workers.This idea involves not only emotionalacceptance, but also a great deal of"know-how." Working together de-mands more than just having one'sheart in the right place. Here are a fewof the specific things people have to beable to do in democratic cooperativeactivities:

Select people for responsible leader-ship.

Express points of view clearlv andeffectively.

Avoid side-issues and go to the heartof a problem.

Evaluate leadership.Delegate responsibilities.Present minority viewpoints.Safeguard minority rights.These skills, moreover, are demanded

not only on the floors of Congress. Theyare vital everywhere-in the shop,church, and neighborhood groups. Theyare essential in civilian defense prepa-rations and activities, in fact, ever--where where a group of people has ajob to do, a problem to solve. Withoutthe development of these skills, thefuture of American political and sociallife is a depressing one. Sooner or laterpeople lacking these skills fall into thetrap of totalitarianism-regardless of thename by which it may be called.

2. Skills of critical thinking. Wartimedangers place new values on mass intelli-gence. European nations were defeatedpartly because of their susceptibility tothe lies, threats, and deceptions of theNazi propaganda machine. Psycholog-ical warfare makes critical thinking animportant necessity for all. And athome, the conduct of the war will beefficient only to the degree that peoplecriticize and raise intelligent questions.

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To do this, we must acquire ability inthe following specific skills or be-haviors:

Defining problems clearly.Gathering needed information.Evaluating information.Interpreting data.Drawing conclusions.Acting on conclusions.3. Consumer skilds-the art of "buy-

manship." Faulty and undirected buy-ing habits could wreck our war effort.That is why the OPA regulations areset up. But lack of consumer skillscould easily make the OPA programflounder in disaster. For within the ra-tioning system, American consumersmust maintain health and effectiveness.The budgeting of ration points has be-come as important as the budgeting ofmoney. The well-being of a family canbe dissipated by careless and unskill-ful buying habits now more than everbefore. The prevention of inflation de-pends on widespread understanding ofits causes and of the reasons for savingand buying war bonds. So the effectivewartime citizen is one who has skill inusing his money and his points and whorefrains from throwing surplus pur-chasing power on a market short ofpurchasable goods.

4. Recreation skills. The importanceof recreation to both military and civil-ian morale has repeatedly been stressed.Tl-ere are, of course, the skills neededto take part in sports-even small groupand individual sports such as golf,swimming, tennis, and boating. In ad-dition, there are skills needed for gooduse of radio, motion pictures, and news-papers and in carrying out constructivehobbies. Then, there are the skills of so-cial relationships needed to make a suc-

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cess of such informal recreational activi-ties as parties, dances, and hikes.

5. Vocational skills. By this is meant,not only the specific skills needed fordoing a particular job, such as runninga lathe, but rather those general skillsneeded by most people in relation tomost jobs. These include, for example:

Canvassing job possibilities.Evaluating one's capabilities.Interviewing prospective employers.Applying for a position.Getting along with fellow-workers.Evaluating arguments for and against

unions.These skills help people to get into

jobs where they fit and have a chancefor success. In these days of manpowershortages, when personnel workers haveless time to care for individual adjust-ments, these skills take on new signifi-cance and importance. True, it is easyto get a job now; but simply puttinga person into a job for which he may ormay not be qualified adds to labor turn-over and makes little contribution tosolving the manpower problem.

6. Health skills. Lack of doctors incommunities, the dangers of malnutri-tion due to food shortages, and the ne-cessity for high degrees of vigor andenergy-all make health skills mattersof crucial importance in wartime. Highon the list of important wartime skills,therefore, are those involved in properhabits of eating, resting, cleanliness, andthe elementary precautions against con-tagious disease. They help keep peoplefit for wartime responsibilities.

The foregoing examples are designedto stress the point that there are manykinds of skills needed by our citizensin wartime whether they are in theArmy or not. Some are old skills with

Educationsl Leaderebip

which the school has always been con-cerned; others are new to the schools.

Meeting Valid Demands for Skills

What, then, is called for in theschools? Does the demand for skillsmean a reversal of educational trends,a return to some legendary past whichexisted before modem education hadpresumably weakened the fibre ofAmerican youth? Or does the demandprovide, on the other hand, further in-centive for continuous appraisal of cur-ricula and procedures in the light ofmodern educational viewpoints? Theview taken in this article is that thesecond is the sound position with re-gard to the new skills and also for theteaching of the three R's.

How can we teach the new skills?The new skills are the ones demandedof all citizens. They are, therefore, apart of that general education providedto meet common needs. In many schoolstoday these needs are met in experienceor core programs. The flexibility pro-vided by these programs makes it pos-sible to meet new specific needs as theyarise and to teach skills in relation to theconstantly changing pattern of modemproblems. As a general policy it mightbe stated, then, that the demand for thenew skills can best be met by a furtherextension and development of the coreprogram at the high school level andthe experience curriculum in the ele-mnentary school.5

The teaching of the skills of coopera-tive living and activity demands wide-spread advances in democratizing the

l For further development of this viewpoint seeHarold Spears: "The Curriculum Movement Helpsthe High School Face Total War," Education, Feb-ruary, 1943, 359-367

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school as a social institution. Thoseschools which are little totalitarian so-cieties make it practically impossible forstudents to learn how to conduct theirown affairs, how to set up and solveproblems, how to take responsibilityfor individual and group conduct, andhow to select and evaluate leadership.On the other hand, those which makethe students partners in the enterpriseof managing and organizing a socialinstitution are providing such oppor-tunities in abundance. Similarly, the ex-tension of democratic procedures suchas pupil-teacher planning into the class-room provides further for learning theskills of cooperative self-managementand discipline.

The schools can and should teachdemocratic processes and skills as anintegral part of the program. Theymust be practiced every day, in everyclassroom, and in all the activities ofthe school if they are to be effectivelylearned.

The learning of critical thinkingskills demands many opportunities forrealistic problem solving on the part ofstudents. It means a wider use of the"problem-approach" in social studiesand other subjects. The students in thesenior social problems course at theSequoia Union High School, Red-wood City, Calif., studied the healthproblem of their community, carriedout a housing survey in connection withtheir study, and drew the attention ofUSHA officials to the need for grantingfunds for a housing project. In doingthis they had to define their problem,gather data, interpret and evaluate theirfindings, draw conclusions, and act onthem.

Stress can be placed on critical think-

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ing skills by evaluating progress in them.Usually we teach the things we test for.Objectives which are neglected in theevaluation program are often neglectedin the classroom. If evaluation is anintegral part of the teaching process,we should try to evaluate some ofthese "intangibles," such as progress inthought processes. The good workstarted along the line of critical think-ing by the Eight-Year Study EvaluationStaff should be continued in wartimeand emphasized as never before.

Teaching the three R's. Perhapslouder and more insistent than anyother demand is the one for teachingthe so-called fundamentals, best illus-trated by the three R's. Now, no onewith any educational sense advocatesthat they be eliminated. In fact, there issincere effort in modern schools toteach them better. But this cannot bedone effectively with time-honoredniethods and procedures. No subjectshave received as much attention andtime in the curriculum as arithmetic andreading; yet the armed forces and warindustry apparently find the product ofthe schools lacking in these skills.

The answer to the demand for greaterskill in the fundamentals lies in moreeffective teaching rather than in moreof the same unproductive methods.Some of the most modern educationalprograms now in operation are carriedon under the auspices of the armedforces. Thev have streamlined theirtraining programs to meet militaryneeds, they use modern techniques andequipment, they emphasize learning bydoing, and they draw on all availableresources to help them out. If they donot have what is needed to shorten thetraining period and to educate effec-

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tively for war service, they get it. TheArmy film, "Military Training," isgood argument against a return to old-time ways of teaching the three R's.Useful skill in the fundamentals resultsfrom purposeful learning, humaneteaching, and modern methods.

There is no doubt that the educationalprogram of the armed forces is costly,but it is effective for the purpose forwhich it is organized. Likewise, theschool program of teaching fundamen-tals will be more expensive if it is doneby well-qualified teachers who haveadequate equipment and modern teach-ing aids. But it would be worth thecost.

Dangers and Opportunities in theCurrent Demand for the Skills

What will this wave of enthusiasmfor the skills do to and for Americaneducation? Will the long-term resultsbe good or bad? The answers depend onthe extent to which educational leaders,teachers, and parents can guide schoolprograms and practices to avoid thedangers and at the same time capitalizeon fullest possibilities.

Dangers. The number one danger isthat the demand for skills may be in-terpreted as a demand for repudiatingmodern educational advances. If thisdanger is not averted, we shall findourselves abandoning classroom democ-racy, activities, curriculum enrichment,and other modern education features.

A second danger is that we may drawan artificial distinction between skillsneeded for wartime living on one handand those needed for postwar recon-struction on the other. This may resultin emphasizing only those skills whichare thought useful for the war. The

Educational Leadership

program should include skills whichhave value both in war years andlater on. A short-sighted version ofskills for wartime living alone wouldhandicap pupils greatly and deny thema sound and useful education.

A third danger is that skills may benarrowly interpreted and then stressedto the exclusion of other equally im-portant educational outcomes-such aswholesome attitudes, interests, enjov-ments, and appreciations. Over-emphasison the skill aspect of such a subject asEnglish literature may well destroy itsvalues for enjoyment. The current de-mand for the skills could easily giveus a one-sided educational program.

A fourth danger is that demand forthe skills might lead to a disregard of theunique personality and needs of the in-dividual pupil. Over-emphasis on stand-ardized tests, minimum essentials, andresearch projects to find "best" methodscould result in a return to the mechan-istic philosophy of the 192o's.

Opportunities. Advances in educationin the prewar period made it possiblefor many schools easily to place theirprograms on a wartime basis. The cur-rent need for realistic education and thestress on performance values providenew incentives for further progress.Education "by doing" has new prestige.Skills can be taught in relation to prob-lems and projects of real and immediateconcern to the pupils, instead of beingisolated and detached from life. Suchan opportunity was seized by the Den-ver Public Schools when point ration-ing was introduced in the early monthsof 1943. The pupils were asked to helpmake the intricacies of point rationingclear to their parents and their com-munities. In the course of this project,

the pupils had to carry on many activi-ties which greatly sharpened their abilityto use the skills of arithmetical compu-tation.

The dangers and opportunities aresymbolized by the High School Vic-tory Corps. This project grew partiallyout of the need for pre-induction train-ing and partially out of the need forbuilding youth morale. When it wasintroduced some saw only the dangers,some saw only the opportunities, whileothers saw how they could avert theone and capitalize on the other. Thevarious divisions, namely, air service,land service, sea service, communityservice, production senrice, and war-time driving service, provide opportuni-ties for developing skills in relation toreal activities. The various subjects ofthe curriculum are vitalized as illustra-tions are drawn from the activities andservices of the Victory Corps. Likewise,numerous opportunities present them-selves to the discerning teacher for closecoordination of the subject fields andthese services.

On the other hand, if school leaders,teachers, and parents are not alert, someimportant phases of the curriculum maybe neglected as a result of time givento these enterprises. The idea could de-generate into empty symbolization andundemocratic distinctions. The HighSchool Victory Corps then is an exampleof a project which needs careful evalua-tion and guidance if maximum returnsare to be realized. Similarly, the move-ment for greater emphasis on skills canbe so directed that it will result, notin the erection of a new set of ivorytowers to replace the old, but in a solid,workmanlike structure for Americaneducation.

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Copyright © 1943 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.