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No WINNETKA WEEKLY TALK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1925 Talks About Our Winnetka Schools By CARLETON W. WASHBURNE, Superintendent, Winnetka Public Schools. Hill and Stone Report Important Realty Deals The Winnetka office of Hill and Stone, realtors, report the fcllowing recent transactions: The new residence at 867 Enjoy This Hydrox Adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing have been taught for so many centuries that one would think the way of teaching them, the amount of drill required, and how much of each should be taught would be thoroughly known. Addition and subtraction, at least, have been taught from the dawn of civilization--thousands and thousands of years. Yet today when we are faced with the question as to how much skill in these processes is needed and what is the best way to achieve it, we find the question difficult to. answer. Let us consider addition for a minute. There are just 45 combinations--1 plus 1, 1 plus 2, 1 plus 3, etc., up to 9 plus 9. Ever since the ancient Hindus began our system of writing numbers, down through the days when an Arabian. civilization brought the system into the western world, on into this twentieth century, these 45 cimbinations have been taught to children in one way or another. - Yet today there are two widely divergent theories as to the best way of teaching them. One theory states that children should learn the addition facts automatically as straight memory work--that 8 and 7 should mean 15 as instantly and with as little reasoning as t-h-e meane the. This school of pedagogy claims that just as we have modified the teachings of reading from the alphabetical method to the teaching of words as wholes, so should number. combinations be taught as wholes. They claim that much more speed and accuracy can be developed 'if children learn "their number work auto- matically, and that we can avoid the in- accurate slowing-down process of count- ing on' one's fingers. The other theory states that children should never memorize a thing until it has some meaning for them. These people state that a child should learn his number combinations: through dealing with objects. He should, for example, first learn how much 3 chickens and 4 chickens are, and from that learn the sum of 3 and 4. Train a child's reason- ing powers and thought processes from the beginning. Let him understand the why of what he is doing. unknown from the known. What Is Right? Which side is right? Excellent psy- . chological arguments can be brought forth in support of either side of the controversy. Meanwhile, very fortu- nately, children are able to learn to add whichever way we teach them. Probably, however, one way is superior to the other. But which? . The Winnetka schools have last year and this year been teaching both methods --one method to one group of children in each school, the other method to an- other group, the two groups being so chosen that the children in one group have exactly the same ability as those in the other. By the end of this year we shall have some indication as to which method is superior, and thereafter shall follow that method in our teaching. Develop the |. But this is one phase of one process in arithmetic, and that the very simplest of all. When we get into the higher phases a different kind of problem con- fronts us. What sort of fractions, for example, should children be able to solve ? How rapidly and accurately should they be able to do long division? What does life demand in these regards? Investigations have been made by sev- eral educators as to the type of frac- tions most frequently used in business life. It has been found that almost no fractions with denominators higher than 12 are used by men in modern business. Last year a committe of superintendents and principals from Northern Illinois, of which I happened to be chairman, gave arithmetic tests to Parent-Teacher Association, Rotary and other com- mercial clubs in a number of cities-- Waukegan, Wilmette, Chicago, etc. We found. from these tests that adults use fractions so little that they made poorer 'scores than our seventh and eighth grade children. At the same time we dis- covered that adults were very much ahead of even the better half of eighth grade graduates: when it comes to adding and subtracting. As a result of this investigation and several others carried on by the people in different parts of the country, we have modified our Win- netka course of study to provide less drill in fractions, after the children once master them, and more drill for speed and accuracy in addition and subtrac- tion, The whole course of study in arith- metic fundamentals in Winnetka is in this way built up on scientific investiga- tion, both as to the amounts that chil- dren need to know, and the best ways of teaching:them. There have not yet been enough investigations for us to kaow-- with certainty 'that our methods |] are -the best or that we are always teaching exactly. the right thing. But insofar as there is scientific' evidence, we are using it. Every process, every arithmetic example in the Winnetka schools is the result of thought, discus- sion, and a study of scientific investiga- tions. 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