Fifty-five Authors

Six years ago Dean George Frederick Arps and his colleagues in Ohio State University's College of Education started a demonstration high school (grades 7 to 12) on their campus. They admitted all sorts of Columbus youngsters, charged $100-a-year tuition. Today their progressive school of 300 students, "the school with the pink rooms and green blackboards," is one of the most famed in the U. S. Last week it was described in an extraordinary little book collectively written by the 55 children in University School's class of '38, the first to graduate.

They wrote Were We Guinea Pigs?* said the 55 authors, aged 17 to 18, because progressive education "is often misunderstood." In clear though slightly stiff language they told who they were (with charts)--a group with better than average intelligence, most with family incomes over $4,000. They also described their teachers--"a very unusual collection. . . . One gentleman spends his summers paddling around Europe in a canoe. . . . We have fine co-operation among our faculty. Some of our teachers have got along together so well that they have married."

As seventh-graders, the class decided to make its quarters in its new building "like a real home." It ordered furniture, designed andirons and screens, made lists of books for the library, held a housewarming, finally printed, laboriously, by hand, a book, Our Home. The authors of Were We Guinea Pigs? report that all students in University School are required to study science, social science, English, mathematics and physical education. Even Latin is offered. But their school differs from traditional ones because the students plan their own studies.

The authors talk learnedly of "core courses" (e.g., "learning about living," in which English, science and social science are combined), tell what they did every step of the way through the six years. When they came to a new subject (such as communication), they divided into small groups to tackle separate topics, sent individual members out to hunt the answers to questions about the origin of human speech, the telephone, printing presses. By senior year they had explored many fields that ordinary high-school students seldom know--Columbus slums. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the position of women in Byzantine civilization, the motion picture industry, alchemy. They went to Detroit and New York City to study labor, industry and urban living.

To University School's youngsters, art "played a vital part." One year they had a medieval Christmas, painted a church doorway for scenery. Other years they celebrated Christmas in the style of Sweden, Russia, Elizabethan England. They illustrate their book with paintings, photographs of their work, themes. Sample literary work (a summary of war):

Eager, ruddy,

Freshly drilled.

Reeking, bloody,

Freshly killed.

Guinea Pigs's authors devote a whole chapter to Putting Our Minds In Order. For University School is distinguished from other progressive schools chiefly by a unique mathematics course, most popular course in the school and required for all juniors and seniors. Called The Nature of Proof, this course is intended to promote critical thinking, differs from the usual study of logic by being entirely practical. It is taught by shock-haired, Canadian-born Dr. Harold Pascoe Fawcett. Dr. Fawcett starts with an ex planation of the principles of Euclidean geometry, goes on to show his students that every conclusion depends on assumptions and definitions, and, when correct, follows a concise mathematical pattern. His pupils then analyze speeches, political plat forms, advertising, riddle them full of holes. Not only did Dr. Fawcett's pupils rate high er than other high-school youngsters in tests on reasoning ability, but they got the best marks in the State in plane geometry. The authors proudly display in their book the slogan over the doorway to this class : PRIZE THE DOUBT LOW KINDS EXIST WITHOUT. Less enthusiastic was one parent, who complained: "[My daughter] has become too cynical and is given to a great amount of quibbling."

But the authors of Were We Guinea Pigs? though critical, are not cynical about their school. They complain that a few of their courses were disappointing, admit that a student without initiative may "slide along," object that at times some of their friendly teachers "have tended to become a little too personal."

The authors' conclusion: "Maybe we were guinea pigs, but we. our parents and our teachers are still glad we took the chance."

*Henry Holt & Co. ($2).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.