John was putting a book into its slot on one of the library shelves as Susanentered.
“There you are. Good,” John greeted. “Where would you like tostart?”
“Where wouldyoulike to start? This is primarily your project. You must have some ideas about what you want,” Susanasked.
John walked to the library window that had his favorite view of the park and stood looking out with his hands clasped behind hisback.
“I’m not an educator. I know very little about how a school is organized and run. All I want is what is best for my workers’children.”
“Both boys and girls?” sheasked.
“Of course,” John said turning to face Susan. “Why would Inot?”
“I’ve found that most parents value a better education for their boys who must go out into the world to work. Many feel an education for a girl is a waste of time and money. Best just keep them in the house tending to the babies and makingdinner.”
“That’s rubbish, and you know it,” John said a littlesternly.
“Of course, I know it. But I needed to see what your outlook was. Thank you for clarifying that for me.” She gave him a teasingsmile.
John wagged his finger at her. “You’re being naughty with me.Huh?”
“Only for the sake of thechildren.”
“Very well. Now that you have that out of your system, tell me about your teachingphilosophy.”
“Where I was teaching before, the classes were organized boys of all ages in one class and girls of all ages in another. It is not a very efficient way of teaching, because no matter what level you are teaching at, there are always going to be older or younger children who are being left out of thelesson.
My idea is to have both boys and girls in a single class—only the classes will be organized by age groups so that you are teaching at the level of the class. It’s simple but it’s also revolutionary in today’s thoughts oneducation.”
“Hmm. Might that not be distracting to have boys and girls in the sameclass?”
“Are you suggesting the boys and girls are not at the same level of learningability?”
“Not at all. I’m suggesting rowdiness and distraction. How can boys and girls study together without there being sexualdistraction?”
“I agree there might be some distraction at first, but once the children get used to the idea, I believe that will disappear. And it might even stimulate healthy competition between the sexes to see who might be the superiorstudents.”
John paced the library and thought about thisproposal.
“Most interesting. But how many teachers would that require? I can see one teacher teaching a single sex class in the morning and the other sex in an afternoon class. But if you have the children separated out by age groups how would that work? Would there need to be a teacher for each one of thosegroups?”
“Yes, but the quality of education would be far superior. The teacher would have the class for a whole day, and without the distraction of having to be concerned with students outside the agegroup.”
“And how many of these classes do youpropose?”
“Three—beginning, intermediate, andadvanced.”
“So, there would need to be threeteachers?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a much greaterexpense.”
“It is. But the children would benefitgreatly.”
“Hmm. I will need to give this somethought.”
“Let me ask you, do you have a budget for the school?” Susan asked as she was becoming excited by the prospect of theschool.
