A high school guidance counselor was talking about course selection to a junior with a straight-A record. "But certainly you don't want to carry more than three academic subjects your senior year?" she said. "You'll want to devote plenty of time to your school's activities."
The counselor was serious. At Horace Mann High School, a public school of about 800 in Gary, Indiana, the average pupil's load is three "solids" or academic courses. The rest of his school time is spent in study hall, physical education, or "specials" ranging from dramatics to home economics.
Olive Greensfelder, another guidance counselor at the school, explained that Horace Mann discourages four solids for incoming freshmen "whose grades are not A's and B's and whose IQ tests do not indicate they have at least 'high average' ability. . . . Through counseling, we are interested in urging pupils to do well what they do rather than spread themselves too thin."
"My guess," she said, "is that about half of our pupils take about four solids and no more than ten percent take five or more at any time. Many pupils take five solids the semester they take safety"--a required half-year course, which is considered a solid.
With such a light load of academic subjects, it is not surprising to find low minimal requirements for graduation in Gary high schools. To receive a diploma, a student must take at least three years of English, two of social studies, one of math, one of science, one-half of safety, and one of physical education.
He must also amass at least 18 "credits" during his four years. One full credit is granted for each year of a subject whether solid or special. As long as a student fulfills the minimum academic requirements, he can earn the rest of his credits in a variety of ways.
For instance, he might get four credits for spending an hour a day through high school in the band--complete with purple and red uniforms and more than 20 majorettes.
"Living" and "Clothing"
A girl can elect Modern Living as one of her solids, a half-year course "looking toward marriage, home planning, and learning to use money wisely." Or she might take Advanced Clothing, described in the school catalogue as "a second semester of clothing . . . designed particularly for twelfth grade girls to construct clothing for graduation activities."
A year's assistance in the school office, library, or audio-visual classes yields one-half unit of credit. Once, students received credit for assisting teachers with grading papers and checking roll, but this is now discouraged.
Several Gary high schools offer four years of ROTC for credit. The course is intended to "develop habits of orderliness and precision, discipline and respect for constituted authority, patriotism and honorable deportment; and to develop understanding and appreciation of the Army in its role of defense and of the opportunities available in military service."
For the student preparing for college, there are academic courses. But the selection is often limited. Some Gary schools are particularly lacking in the variety of sciences and languages.
Small Size of Schools
The small size of most Gary high schools handicaps the range of courses each school can offer. With a population of 175,000, Gary has eight high schools. This arrangement was instituted so that students would not have far to travel to school even though the city is sprawled over a large area. Each high school has an elementary school in the same building, and many pupils attend Horace Mann from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
While the system enables students to avoid bus fares and go home for lunch, the disadvantage is in the comparatively small size of most of the high schools. In some the average graduating class is under 100 students, and few are over 250.
At Horace Mann, one of the largest, language courses depends on the number of students willing to take them and the availability of a teacher. A few years ago, two years of Latin and two of Spanish were the only languages taught. French was reintroduced recently, and a first-year German class is being formed for next fall.
Occasionally the third and fourth years of a language are given, upon special agreement between a teacher and a few interested students. Although Russian and Portuguese are listed in the city-wide course catalogue, neither is actually offered.
Any analysis of the Gary school system must take into consideration the type of community it serves. A mushrooming city founded only 52 years ago, Gary is the home of United States Steel's largest single plant, which employs about one-fifth of the city's residents.
Over one-half of Horace Mann's graduates attend college, but the average for the whole city is less than 20 percent. Mark C. Roser, supervisor of the schools' Public Personnel Division, has commented that the Gary high schools "cannot completely be geared to the needs of the twenty percent of the group who go on to college, if we are going to have democratic schools."
Wirt System
Several decades ago the Gary school system was established by William A. Wirt, who instituted a "work-study-play" program designed for mill workers' children. According to Roser, the Wirt System "was partially an attempt to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population, with minimum building facilities, and partially a revolt against the typical 'Latin School' type of upper class education." The inclusion of extracurricular activities during the school day for credit was an integral feature of the system.
Even those students who continue to college usually find the Gary schools adequate. Most are satisfied to continue their schooling at state universities and colleges where an Indiana high school diploma is sufficient to guarantee entrance. Compared to the East, the worry of "getting into college" is almost nonexistent for Gary students.
Eastern College Difficulties
The occasional student who wishes to "go East" seldom realizes the difficulties of getting into a private Eastern college. He has probably been an all-A student in high school anyway, and has the added advantage of "geographic distribution." Only a handful of students take College Boards in any year, since few Midwestern colleges require them.
Horace Mann, therefore, is spared the Eastern high schools' keen competition for grades in anticipation of the college entrance scramble. To the extent that scholastic competition exists, it is simply competition for honors within the high school itself--who will be valedictorian, who will be elected to National Honor Society.
Even more important is the competition for social status within the Horace Mann community. Happiness in high school often depends on being in the "right" clubs and the right cliques.
For a girl, the summit of social acceptance is election into Sub-Deb Club or Jinx Club, sorority-like organizations not connected officially with the school. Hi-Y and Torch Club for boys are sponsored by the school, but membership is also selective.
12 Percent Jewish
Although the school is about 12 percent Jewish, very few Jews are members of the "top" clubs. Their out-of-school social life centers around the B'nai B'rith Girls and the AZA, Jewish youth organizations.
In addition to the clubs, the high school itself provides a multitude of social function. From the back-to-school dance to the Senior Prom, there is hardly a week without a dance, class play, or big sports event.
The school athletic field is turned into a fair-ground with ferris wheel and Bingo for a week at the end of each summer when the active Alumni Association presents its annual Carnival. As soon as textbooks are distributed for the year, it is time for football Homecoming Week. Beginning with a parade and bonfire, the celebration winds up with the crowning of the homecoming queen and her court--invariably members of Sub-Deb or Jinx.
More royalty is chosen later in the year at the kings-and-queens dance. Not satisfied with selecting the boy and girl most-likely-to-succeed, the senior class also elects kings and queens of eyes, voice, hair, laugh, figure and physique, sophistication and dashing, personality, popularity, and a few others. There is even a queen of clothes--usually the girl with the largest wardrobe of cashmere sweaters.
Indiana is the basketball state, and the football season barely ends before the Hoosier hoopsters take over in late November. The highlight of the season is the city-wide Holiday Tournament, which packs the municipal stadium for several days during Christmas vacation.
The Senior Prom and its underclass version, the Freshmore, are the two biggest dances of the year. All-night prom parties for the upperclass event are arranged by a committee of the Parent-Teachers Association in a futile attempt to keep students from driving 25 miles to Chicago night-spots after the dance.
Dress Habits Fadish
The greatest social hazard for a Horace Mann student is being different. Clothes are particularly conformist and fadish. To school the girls wear skirts and blouses or sweaters, and whatever type of shoes is the rage that year. Boys wear sport shirts or sweaters and "drapes"--slightly tapered, flannel slacks. Suit jackets and ties are never seen during school hours.
Jitterbugging to popular music and eating pizza are considered "cool" or "real gone." Enjoying one's studies is "different" and apt to be socially dangerous. There are seldom enough academically-oriented students to form an "intellectual crowd."
Unchallenged by the mediocrity of his course, the bright student often channels his excess ambitions and abilities into extracurricular activities. Music, drama, speech, and journalism are available in the clubs which meet for an hour each day.
Merits of Clubs
In the Dramatic Club a student will probably act in more "great plays" than he will ever read for English class. The group performs a Shakespearean work each year, and the senior class play is traditionally a serious drama.
Debate Club, recently demoted to after-school hours, is the most intellectually stimulating of the activities. (For the past four years, the valedictorian has been a debater.) A student who is bored with his social studies courses can explore problems of national and international politics for debates and extemporaneous speaking contests. By writing debate cases, he will gain more experience for college paper-writing than through the infrequent English course essays.
Paul N. Carlson, Horace Mann principal, sees advantages in a system which discourages bright students from becoming bookworms. He notes, "I have felt many times that many of our academically-oriented students did spend too much time in the speech arts, band, or vocal music. On the other hand, some of our most advanced students would not have fared well in college if they had not been brought out of the academic shell through the extra-curricular influence of various faculty members."
"Academic shell," however, is hardly appropriate when applied even to the most intellectually-minded Horace Mann student. It is very difficult even to form an academic shell when one's academic courses are unstimulating. The fact remains that the really interested student is forced to look to the Debate Club, the public library, or the civic symphony orchestra for extensive cultural development.
Nevertheless, the principal is probably correct when he says that "Horace Mann at least ranks above the typical mid-western high school." It is one of the two best high schools in Gary, and above average for Indiana. But this merely indicates that inadequacy is wide-spread. It does not prove that the school provides an academic experience comparable to the country's top private or public high schools. Nor does it even prove that Gary does the most it can with the resources available to a medium-sized industrial city.
Roser, the school psychologist, offers one solution: "Perhaps what we need in America is an increased use of private secondary schools with high achievement standards, to definitely train for specific leadership roles."
Improvement Possibilities
Another possibility is improvement within the framework of the public school system. This is what Gary has been attempting in the past year or two, under the direction of a new superintendent.
One of the innovations has been to regulate the maximum number of credits that can be earned in a particular area of extracurricular activity. For instance, there is a limit on the number of years that speech or dramatics can be taken for credit.
The second improvement is the introduction of a wider variety of courses in the curriculum. More languages and advanced courses in science, mathematics, and English have been added or proposed. This type of improvement is limited, however, unless the Gary system is someday consolidated into fewer and larger schools.
Course Quality
Additional courses, though, will not alter the quality of the subjects already taught. Public high school courses are geared to the average student. At many schools, the gifted learner is placed in accelerated classes. Horace Mann has this accelerated program in algebra and plane geometry--an arrangement which might profitably be extended to other subjects.
Gary's recognition of its educational shortcomings and the improvements made so far are laudable. They do not make Gary high schools into preparatory academies. Neither do they detract from the excellence of the many extracurricular activities, nor do they eliminate the "fun" aspect of Midwestern high school life.
There is little danger that further advances in the quality and variety of regular school courses will push bright students into an "academic shell."
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