9/16/2009:
... continuing our Education Week series.
In 1942, while other schoolchildren were stuck inside a classroom learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, the children of Wing village spent their days in workshops, classrooms, and fields learning the finer points of shoe repair, woodwork, and gardening. These students were the beneficiaries of a new education system devised by the president of Mayville State Teacher's College, Cyril Grace. When Grace took a closer look at the teaching methods used in North Dakota schools, he discovered that in many cases they weren't very effective. A majority of the state's inhabitants were farmers, and yet their children were being educated away from the farm, under programs designed to prepare students for city life-a life many of them would never pursue. While farm children were away at school, cramming their heads full of facts and figures, they were steadily being distanced from their community and their way of life.
In response, Cyril Grace developed a new approach that would be more beneficial to farm children. One student at Mayville College, Walter R. Brusven, liked Grace's ideas and decided to develop and test the new program when he was appointed principal of the Wing village schools in 1939. The "Mayville method," as it came to be known, combined a traditional school curriculum in reading, writing, and math with an education in practical trade skills.
Brusven invited members of the Wing community to come to the school and teach the students their unique skills. A shoemaker named Gust Anderson came to instruct the boys in the art of shoe repair-a skill he learned in Sweden. Another volunteer instructor, Mrs. Gustav Lehto, taught the girls how to decorticate flax seed and spin the fibers into linen thread. All students had the chance to plant seeds in the school garden and watch their plants grow, as they learned the science behind the sprouting vegetation. Each student also received basic instruction in woodwork and mechanics, two handy skills in farm work.
The new education system at Wing brought increased high school enrollment, fewer failures, and greater achievement among the school's graduates. These improvements were a testament to the success of the new program, but as Mr. Grace pointed out, "The real measurement is the improved attitude of the people and their outlook on life. The people of Wing have seen their school become an active force in community life. Naturally, they like it."
Dakota Datebook written by Carol Wilson
Source
Bismarck Tribune, June 5, 1942.