Innovations In Education
Several interesting exiieriinents him> lieen
Irieil out in Wilson ('ounty recently, under
tlie supervision of Superintendent
К.
K.
C urtis, and all of them are proving
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successful.
INNOVATIONS in oduciition arc
nothing new to Wilson County hut
in the last few months North Car¬
olina's educators — and ninny learned
men who are interested in education
outside tho state as well— have been
eyeing with a great deal of interest a
•cries of programs that Wilton has
b****n carrying on.
In some instances the ideas may
not be new but their application
probably is in these new programs for
betterment of education and the in¬
teresting thing about them is that
Wilson County is the first of the 1(H)
counties in the state to spring them
on educators who are constantly look¬
ing for new ways of bettering the lot
of the American child ns this country
goes through its second year of war.
As was said before, educational ex¬
periments are not new in Wilson.
Since the great days of Governor
Avcoek and the great educator
Charles L. Coon, who was superin¬
tendent of education in the county for
«о
many years, Wilson has continual¬
ly, in one way or another, led the
way for the educational Daniel
Boones of North Carolina.
New Program Attracts Interest
Now in 1943 Superintendent K. It.
Curtis of the Wilson County seliool
system, comes forward with a series of
innovations for Tar Heel education
that has the state looking in the direc¬
tion of the eastern county with in¬
terest
Part of this new series of pro¬
grams has already started. Because of
this other counties have picked them
up. But others are about to start and
all have the sanction of Clyde Erwin.
State Superintendent of Public In¬
struction, and of T. E. Brown, head
of the vocational work in the schools
of the state.
One of the programs appeared in
a story in Tub Statk recently and
told of how a system of farm repair
work was being done at the schools
during the past year. Under this sys¬
tem the farmers go to classes a cer¬
tain number of times a week, learn
how to do that which they have never
done for themselves before and also
B«/ JOHN G. THOMAS
learn how to conserve machinery,
farm goods and the like. This pro¬
gram was started by Superintendent
Curtis because of the fact that farm
• <|uipment is almo-t impossible to get
ill war time, and by teaching the farm¬
er to repair what he has the school
system is not only helping the Avar
effort and the food-for-freedom pro¬
gram but is helping the farmer to
plan toward a better future.
Still another program that was
started just before seliool was over
for the year i« the “home-school-
work” program instituted by Curtis.
This program was set up to allow
the student in high school to keep up
with his Studies and education and.
at the same time lie of help on the
farm.
Nothing Complicated About It!
The program is simple. It has as
its basis the dose cooperation between
parent, pupil and teacher. When a
student is forced to stay out of school
because he ha* to help on a farm in
the war-time emergency he is given a
certain amount of advance work to do
at home at nights, after he is through
with his work on the farm during the
day. The parent then signs a slip
saying that this advance school work
is being accomplished and that the
child line been needed on the farm
also. Then when the student finally
returns to school the teacher will per¬
sonally see to it that emphasis is given
on the work this child has missed,
and usually the child succeeds to pick
up where he left off easily.
Superintendent Curtis commented
recently that though the time for the
experiment had lwon short this past
year, it had proved successful enough
so that the program would he con¬
tinued when school opens next fall.
Curtis feels that ibis program —
if the students are needed on the
farms to pick cotton, for instance —
will take care of any loss of time in
classrooms that tho student may have.
This pan week Superintendent
Curtis announced another educational
innovation so far as this state is con¬
cerned when lie disclosed that, for the
first time in North Carolina, the ru
ral schools of Wilson County will
have Diversified Occupation classes
throughout the section.
“D.O." work is nothing new in the
city schools of the state where the
state and federal government* have
supplied funds to carry on such work.
It simply means that the student
spends a certain amount of time in
actual business work and contact in
a store, factory or office, learning a
trade, while the other part of his
time is spent in classrooms being
taught many more of the technical
aspects of his work.
The interesting thing — to the stu¬
dent, anyway— about “D.O.” study is
the fact that the student gets paid* by
the employer while he goes to school
and works at the same time.
The Only Rural Schools
Many towns in North Carolina, in¬
cluding Wilson, which has a model
set up in its city school system, have
this Diversified Occupation training
but no rural schools have it. Thus
Wilson County will be first with such
a program.
The reasons for the absence of the
“D.O." program in rural school* i*
two-fold. One reason — and this may
Ih« the most important — is that there
i-i no money available from the state
or federal governments for such work
in rural schools. The other is that to
date educators have felt that there is
no outlet in country schools, away
from business centers in town*, for
such “D.O.’* work.
Superintendent Curtis has an¬
swered both of these questions, how¬
ever.
Mr. Brown of the State Vocational
Work Department, recently wrote Mr.
Curtis that there was no money avail¬
able for "D.O.” work in rural schools.
“I wrote him back,” said Curtis,
“and told him that we didn’t need
any money. I told him that we would
go ahead and work out such a pro-
