This book makes no pretense at solving any educational problems or opening any new windows of insight and vision. It was born out of concern for an insecure, thumb-sucking, erratic-behaviored fifth grader who through complete indifference to learning was making it impossible for his teacher to teach him or the other members of the class. The simple practices used in the home to help the teacher and the child were so rewarding that they have since been adopted by other parents for other grades with equally gratifying results.

Most of the suggestions here recorded are very old, but they are time-honored and in no sense obsolete. They are simply the common sense of education. And though they are old, a new need has arisen for their use. More and more is being required of the elementary school child for entrance into college preparatory courses in public and private high schools. These little people, for whom we have tried to make things so easy, are being required to take some big tests. It is becoming quite evident that the elementary school years can no longer be wasted. Today the child who finishes the eighth grade without intellectual stature and a good basic foundation in the primary subjects finds himself in serious trouble.

The primary subjects which have been made the focus of our concern in this book are reading, writing, and arithmetic. There is no attempt to pass judgment on the many new experiments which are now being carried out in elementary school. Time will doubtless judge them correctly. Nor are there any sure-fire improvement charts for first grade, second grade, and so on through the eight years of elementary school. It is the premise of this book that there is much that can be done at home to help the child from the very first day of school, and every day thereafter. He can be helped in each grade from one through eight but it will be easier and take less persuasion in the early years. The book starts with words and ends with examinations. The first grader can learn much at home about words, and the eighth grader can learn much about examinations. However, it can all be learned; whether it is learned before or after, or during the golden years for learning, will depend to a large degree upon what particular year the parent decides that education needs a transfusion in the home.

The golden years of learning are the years which are known basically as the fifth, sixth, and seventh grade years. There are superficial divisions of the years of elementary and high school, 7-5, 6-6, or 8-4, but by whatever name the age period covering these school years is called, it is the most formative in the child's whole life as regards all future learning. These years should also be the most productive in that all the foundation material, reading, writing, and arithmetic, be accomplished to such a degree of satisfaction that they become part of the thinking patterns of the child. Then he enters secondary school with an appreciation of thought, communication, and perception—the basic reasons for education which grow mainly out of the fundamental subjects. If we, the school and the home, have required only one fifth of capacity learning from our children in lower elementary school, we have demanded even less from the years which comprise the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. The qualities of the mind which develop during these years give lasting and enduring influences to "the beginnings" which are sponsored, or should be sponsored, during the earlier years.

These, indeed, are the years during which the real individual emerges briefly,, These are the years when guidance and direction reach their zenith of power with less effort on the part of parent and teacher than ever before or after, and produce greater results. What the younger child has had to be told over and over, and what the older child will resist because of preadolescent and adolescent defiance, can now be accomplished by suggestion. This is the bright age of suggestibility before the emotionally dark age of adolescence. What the younger child did through obligation, having been told to do it, the fifth or sixth grader does through respect for the opportunity to please his seniors and the chance of contact with maturity for which he longs. The brief emergence of the individual from the childhood group brings loneliness and a yearning to escape that loneliness toward maturity, and in this lies the thirst to emulate the elders. The habits and patterns of the future adult an be established at this age and strengthened against the tensions of adolescence when mob addiction, revolt against authority, and the gnawing hunger to be different pull one and the same person in directions confused and chartless. This is not even to imply, of course, that good habits of study and a pattern of maturity cannot be formed later.

Unintentional neglect of the learning potential of the child or perhaps more honestly—unconscious omission, is the source of much humiliation, shock, and sorrow on the part of children and parents. Tragedies of neglect which take painful months and years of undoing and re-training are brought to light each year when children take the step from elementary to secondary school. In high school principals' and headmasters' offices all over the country parents hear in stunned and choked silence the unbelievable: "We can only recommend him for the general course; he is simply not qualified to take the subjects required for college preparation." . . . "Your child's aptitudes are above average, the I.Q. is satisfactory, but we would be doing the child a great injustice to accept him at our school. He has had such poor training in the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic that he would be forever catching up while his classmates were going forward. The gloom and discouragement of always being saddled with a double burden and behind the class could do great and permanent harm. I can only recommend strongly that you seek a school which slowly retraces the paths missed in elementary school."

Somebody is blamed, but only the child is hurt. The parent blames the school, and the school blames the parent. Be that as it may, neither willfully wrongs the child, but the child is, nevertheless, wronged. The boy and girl who waste the opportune years of high school can be held somewhat accountable for they have reached the age to grasp the importance of learning. The waster-of-opportunity, time, and the costs of learning in college deserves to suffer the consequences. Even so, those held accountable for former neglect of work and aspiration in the later years of learning are rarely from the ranks of the elementary school children who were given a foundation of real learning and the meaning of learning. The purpose of this book is to provide the basis for a working partnership among parent and child and teacher through the early years that will insure against disappointment and the drudgery of corrective learning later.

Against the background of what happens to the child in school, a background painted in terms not too glowing and bright, a few ancient, time-honored, common sense suggestions are offered whereby the parent might help prevent one segment of our educational crisis. The elementary years of schooling can be a constructive, aspiring, and consecrated period of development that will acquaint the child with the real and lasting purposes of its reasons for learning, its whole education, and indeed the satisfactions of a good and well-ordered life.

The most important thing happening in American education today is what is being done at school and in the home for the elementary school child. Upon this foundation the whole future of our education rests. Programs and panaceas, building committees and evaluation boards, aims and fads will change, fail or succeed; but your child's daily assignment and your interest in it will bear education's lasting harvest, be it good or bad. A careful and honest approach to concepts and practices which were once the accepted responsibilities of parents and teachers alike must again become a real part of living . . . work must be more important than play, and a sense of accomplishment must be more fashionable than "getting by." The passing of the old dining room table or the center table in the living room where children spread out their books to study is a regrettable fact and a blow to learning, for no longer does the exact hour arrive when books are spread out and work begins. Responsibility for work at home has almost disappeared from the American way of life—and permissive psychology has spawned indifference, frustration, and a longing for direction. These are the truths which must be faced. And if we want the best for our children, we must honestly admit that school reform will never replace the home as an educative factor. And we must devote some of our time to specific ways in which parents can provide the best for their child's education.

What can a parent say or do about will and motivation in study? Will cannot be taught and neither can motivation. But an awareness of both can be made a part of the child, and they can be made a responsibility that is real enough for him to acknowledge. Working together the school and home can stir the will until desire to learn becomes a burning quest which will bring the child to an understanding of the power of work, an appreciation of what knowledge is, with what great difficulty and struggle it is attained, how much industry, sweat and tears, thoroughness, precision and persistence are required if one is to catch even a glimpse of it.

The years of middle and upper elementary school are the most important pattern or habit-forming years of the child's life, and good habits should be started early. Even toward the approach to "twelve" there sometimes creeps in the "twelve-year-defiance" and suggestions begin to be met with "But all the other people in my class do it this way," or "I know, but my way is easier, and the teacher doesn't care." Perhaps the other people do it differently, perhaps junior's way is easier and more susceptible to mistakes, but one thing the parent can be sure of—the teacher does care, and no parent should ever miss an opportunity to emphasize the role of the teacher in the partnership for learning.

Directions and rules for study at home should be simple and elastic—to a degree, but enforced without discussion. Children have an uncanny and foresighted ability to discuss or delay themselves out of work. The parent can help the child greatly, and prepare a more disciplined and receptive candidate for the teacher to teach by putting the demands for "home study," importance of regularity in schedule, and attitude toward both in "no uncertain terms," and then seeing that they are carried out through measures more realistic than "persuasive response" or veiled bribes. The responsibility for helping the child bring system and organization into a well-intended and determined habit of study is the responsibility of the home. When tossed aside with, "I just don't have the time," "That's what I pay taxes for," "But what's the teacher for?"—only the child suffers. The habits of study formed in elementary school can brighten all future schooling, and certainly to a great degree determine a pattern for future success or failure. It is also true that the very young can appreciate learning for the sheer joy of learning because the rewards of learning have not yet become entangled with "getting a better job and more money" or "knowing how to do more in less time with less effort."

At first glance the case of David which follows might seem unusual and beyond reasonable possibility; still the fact remains that one fifth grade pupil changed a whole classroom. David was a tense, thumb-sucking and erratic-behaviored child whose parents thought they were showing normal interest in their child. But a casual question to David's teacher on the street, "How's David doing?" brought an unexpected surprise. "David is doing very poorly. He reads with great difficulty. His span of attention is far below that of the average child of his age, and it is almost impossible to get his attention at all because he devotes most of his time doing disturbing little things to get attention. He is one of three who makes teaching my other thirty-one pupils very difficult. I have thought several times of calling you, but have hesitated, knowing that parents do not like to be disturbed. David is a bright boy and I wish there was some way for us to get to him."

The parents were shocked beyond the point of any longer feeling like "average parents," and as David's father later told the story, the thing that hit him hardest, and "right between the eyes," was not David's particular state, but the statement that kept drumming itself through his head: "knowing that parents do not like to be disturbed." David's parents had been disturbed about their school and David's education. They had blamed and criticized along with their neighbors, but it was now evident that this had done nothing for their own child. Some new approach was necessary, and a new approach proved to be a great awakening for both David and his parents.

David learned that he was really a person after all, and that somebody was interested in him. His parents learned the real meaning of parents' part in a child's education and the exciting enjoyment that comes from the child's golden age of suggestibility.

The depressing street conversation between David's father and his teacher had taken place on a Friday afternoon in mid-October. David's father casually suggested over the weekend that he would like to help David with his homework. He then learned that there was no homework, and David's attempt to describe how he studied and what he studied in school, was far from clear. On Monday afternoon when school closed David's father was waiting outside his classroom with a weekly ledger into which he asked David to record his homework. It then became evident that David had been truthful— there was no homework. The teacher showed by his fumbling attempts to arrange something for David that he was not in the habit of making assignments to be done at home. However, when David and his father went home they had some work to do together.

The weekly drama for homework continued, and it was in a way quite dramatic. An element of passive resistance on the part of the teacher was locked in mortal combat with the determination of a parent. By December the determination was winning, and David had quietly stolen the show. At first greatly resentful and embarrassed at having one of his parents arrive each Monday at the exact moment when all his friends were rushing out the door empty-handed, David had grown proud of his work, carried his ledger to school to show to his friends, along with some of the homework papers which his teacher returned. Two or three ledgers appeared in the hands of other pupils, one the possession of one of the other two boys besides David who had made teaching so difficult for the teacher.

The progress was so quiet as to seem to anticipate some sudden end or predetermined doom, but it continued. The growing popularity of weekly ledgers and homework suffered a brief setback when a Christmas operetta (one of those dull, plotless, endless perennial musts for parents) invaded the classroom. But ledgers and homework had become fashionable, and telephone conversations now began to make references to grades and tests.

By January the assignment ledger was adopted for the entire class, and everybody was assigned homework. There were also weekly tests, and in arithmetic and spelling there were daily tests. Not only had David changed, but the class had changed, and the teacher had changed. Having reluctantly responded to the Monday afternoon requests for work that David might do at home, every phase of study now took on more work.

Teacher and students were no longer content to merely cut out pictures of itinerant workers on the move through the great vegetable picking and canning districts. The pictures were now accompanied by searching questions whose answers were written out at home: What is the difference between an immigrant and an emigrant? A large group of emigrants from one country reflect what possible conditions in that country? What educational problems are raised where there are large numbers of itinerant workers? What is the ultimate effect of these educational difficulties upon the communities in which they exist? What are the probable effects of a large and continuous number of temporary immigrants upon the standards of living in the communities into which they move? These questions made "paste and scissors" a mere adjunct to a Social Studies course which had formerly demanded little more than the collecting of pictures.

There were also noticeable changes beyond the realm of school. The tenseness and thumb-sucking disappeared from David's life, and a whole new pattern of behavior replaced the erratic-tempered existence which had previously caused his parents concern. "The recess gang/' formerly about the only reference ever made concerning school, disappeared from conversation. There were signs of a sense of accountability and orderliness. When school was over, David came home or called from some friend's house to ask if he could play, a great improvement over a complete irresponsibility for time which had previously resulted in his arrival at home any time between 3:00 p.m. and dark. Now he religiously allotted time for play according to the amount of studying he had to do. The neatness of homework papers rubbed off on other parts of David's life. Books were no longer left at any spot from front lawn to breakfast nook, but put down in order upon his well-kept desk.

The whole business of study seemed to divide itself into ritual and questions shared by parents and child. The way David brought home his corrected papers and presented them at the dinner table was a simple ceremony which came to be greatly missed on days when there were no papers returned. The enthusiasm of his parents was the same as that accompanying the presentation of a birthday gift or the birchbark canoe made in the cub scout den. Because there was an arithmetic paper yesterday and there would be one tomorrow never constituted sufficient reason to approve with a mere glance because the evening paper or the mail or something else got in the way. David explained the things he had gotten wrong, and having corrected them, the papers were put away in folders marked "Finished Work" which had come into existence when father's desk had begun to fill up with these treasured symbols of reward.

What had started as punishment for lack of application in school came to be pleasure for both child and parents. There were questions from David about methods and approach, but the real work of study he tackled alone and took very little of his parents' time. Looking back, the whole successful program seemed to have been atmosphere rather than action. The energy and imagination of a child were directed into the proper channels of thought and use. Little wonder that when the hobby show for David's class came in the spring, he went through his "Finished Work" file sorting out some exceptional papers and study projects to display—for school had become "the most important hobby" of a fifth grader who by a constructive partnership with parents and teacher had revolutionized a classroom.

At this golden age of suggestibility, it is well for both parents and teachers to be ever mindful of the importance of controlled interests. There is as much potential danger to a child's future in too many interests as there is in no interests. A child who is allowed to become an auditor or observer in many interests, and a worker in none, is being done a grave injustice. Exploration into any field must be accompanied by work. If Science is taught in elementary school, and it is taught with great success in some, it must be accompanied by assigned reading, written work, and tests. Making clay models of volcanoes and constructing elaborate toys that throw off blue and white sparks do not constitute a science course. Neither does a collection of travel literature and road maps constitute a geography course, nor does a bus trip to the state capitol and a daily discussion of current events make a history course.

Whatever is taught, should be taught thoroughly. The ingredients that go into the making of the cake must be mixed and the dough kneaded long before the icing spoon is licked. The candidate for the college preparatory course in secondary school is tested for his ability to think, to read, to write, and for his basic knowledge of the fundamental subjects: Mathematics and English. Dabbling does not improve one's ability to think or to read or to write. Consequently, it is only the thoroughness with which any subject is studied that determines its value.

There is no glib or magic way to teach value; it is determined by the quantity and the quality of the energy expended to achieve it. The years of middle and upper elementary school can be the most determining and far-reaching in the whole education of the child. From this period many children emerge well branded for all future learning. Sometimes parents and teachers are not aware of the great discovery that has been made, but the child himself has become acutely conscious of his attitude toward learning, his ability to learn and to feel hunger for learning. In like manner, at this age there can already exist a feeling which has made the child a slave to lack of accomplishment. He resists learning because he has never really allowed it to get inside him, and he has no temper or feeling for school beyond the bare requirements, and these he looks upon with doubt and misgivings. He exists educationally with neither desire nor will to be more than a passenger, or an unconvinced observer, on the whole, to him, long and boresome journey.

Depreciation can permeate a young mind as fast as self-confidence, and negative attitudes can accumulate as fast, and with much less effort, as positive ones. In every cultural climate the seeds of both exist. A sense of appreciation for learning and a joy from learning is doubtless the greatest legacy that can be established for the security of a child's future. It is the opportunity of the home to help the school and to anticipate the school to create attitudes that will respond to the thrill of knowing. These attitudes grow out of values which are consciously and unconsciously shaped by parents before the eyes of the child; and the responsibility for these values has never been successfully delegated to the school or the church or any other agency of society, and if these agencies fail in the obligations allotted to them, it reflects only the failure of the home. Could it be that "togetherness" in our schools is there as a substitute for the unity which has disappeared from the home—that unity which once gave security around the old circular dining room table where the books were spread out after dinner?

But the heart should have the support of the head and the hand. To feel what is right for the child is the beginning, but there is work to be done. These are the years during which a child becomes a good reader, and enjoys reading for school work and for pleasure, or he comes to dislike reading that is required of him, and fails to ever form an idea of what reading for pleasure would be like. It will fall mainly upon the home to instill in the child a love for reading, and that done, guidance toward the skills which make good readers will not be difficult and will become a cooperative effort of parent and teacher. Parent and teacher can also work together constructively to find material beyond the textbooks which will generate interest and a desire for more reading.

The ancient Romans, considered the basic foundation for the best and most idealistic way of life the mos maiorum, which liberally translated means "discipline yourself to emulate the best in your elders." The golden age of suggestibility can be a golden age of accomplishment for teacher and pupil if parents practice those habits of orderliness and thoroughness which they would have their children practice. If parents think thoughts of appreciation for intellectual accomplishment and make certain values unmistakable, the children will arrive at school with the desire to learn and the willingness to work.

There is no school and there is no teacher that can accomplish the job of education alone. The ingredients are tangible and intangible, sure and ephemeral, mysterious and commonplace. In anxiety and certainty, parents and teachers forever guide this way and that— in hope and in dreams—past the world's erratic springs of vapor and passing fancies toward the paths which lead, sometimes all too blindly for human understanding, to the deep wells of wisdom dug by some Moses, some Socrates, some Paul of Tarsus, some Virgil, some Michelangelo, some Galileo, some Lincoln, or some Fermi— who was lonely in the crowd and turned aside to search alone for "living water."

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