Annual report. [1946]

6

LEAR~NING TO LIVE

6 LEARNING TO LIVE

facts affecting the quality of that product.
Judgment based on a single set of observations is one-sided. It requires the careful
consideration of all of the facts in order for
one to reach a sound, and fair opinion.
A Big Investment
In Detroit, schools are big business. There
are 327 buildings including seventy classified
as temporary structures. In terms of cash,
the citizens have more than $109,000,000
invested in land, school buildings, and
equipment. It requires 7,450 teachers and
administrators, and 3,700 non-teaching
employees, such as janitors, engineers, lunchroom workers, and clerks, to operate the
schools for the 220,000 pupils in attendance.
These figures do not include the personnel
and membership of Wayne University. The
Board of Education employs help from
practically every classification--electricians,
plumbers, thermostat repairmen, buyers,
psychiatrists, physicians, truck drivers, store
keepers, projectionists, stage hands, and
animal keepers. To get the best qualified
help, the Board pays top wages; actually, it
takes close to $200,000 to meet the daily
payroll for the 11,000 men and women in its
employ., These data are offered as informational background against which the story
of the opportunities, the progress, and the
future plans of this city's great school
system is here told. Learning To Live
includes something of the day-to-day story
-the professional labors of a sincere group
of employees who realize that the extent to
which our school program moves forward
depends largely on the understanding the
public has of its great school system.
If teachers could segregate their pupils
into small, select groups, the job of teaching
and learning might be a quite different and

quite easy one; but Detroit's schools must
serve all the children of all the people-the
rich and the poor, the Mongolians along
with the Caucasians,.those of varied faiths,
and those of no faith, children of limited
experience, and youngsters from broken
homes. In this city's elementary schools
alone there are nearly one hundred nationalities represented among the 145,000 children enrolled in the first six grades. Couple
with this the important fact that children
differ widely in their ability to learn, and
you have something of the complex picture
presented by the boys and girls in today's
classrooms. Tests conducted by the Psychological Clinic of the Detroit Public Schools
show that while eleven per cent of these
elementary children score A (the highest) in
intelligence, there are thirteen per cent at
the lower level of intelligence, with one-half
of the boys and girls in the C or average
ability group. Regardless of the many
differences every attempt is made to understand the child, in order that the teacher
may know what to expect of him and then
see that he gets an education in accordance
with his ability to learn. Of course, the job
is not easy, but it is important and must be
carried through for each boy and girl. Our
teachers are expertly trained in child psychology. In addition, teachers generally are
specialists in a single subject matter field.
The Board of Education's new salary
schedule, guaranteeing teachers a better
professional wage, has enabled your schools
to select the best qualified teachers from the
entire country.
From this brief background it becomes
apparent that Learning To Live in today's
world is an increasingly complex task. The
story of how Detroit's schools educate youth
for the years ahead is reviewed in the
succeeding pages of this report.

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