The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., January 01, 1926, Page 4, Image 4

Page Four
THE UNITED AMERICAN
JANUARY 1926
Social Activities in Americanization
By Hulda Youngberg, Oakland, California.
rp VERY Americanization teacher, we take it, is
intensely interested in the two chief aspects of her
work, the promotion of a constantly improving educa­
tional technique and the development of types of social
organization suited to the needs of her local community
and night school. That word “social” we of course
scrutinize most closely for its implications and applica­
tions as connected with our work and take it only in its
highest sense. We know that thé social activities of
the night school are, at their best, not casual or inci­
dental or accidental, but the fine flowering of a plant
carefully nurtured in the educational life of the school.
They are the expression of the organized life of the
school as a social center. For the students these
activities mean (1) training in democratic cooperation,
(2) the growth of a sense of responsibility toward
school and neighborhood, and (3) the development of
leadership. With these objectives in mind the task
of social organization in any school becomes clarified
and simplified as to method, but the social responsi­
bility of the teacher is intensified because of the con­
tinuous contact demanded in the social training of the
students for self-direction and executive ability.
Because of this importance of the social activities as
an effort of community self-expression and as a process
of education for more purposeful citienship, it is of
interest to us all to learn how different evening schools
are achieving ways and means suited to the needs and
the character of their communities. It is to be expected
that social activities present in our California schools
a number of different forms of organization and also
of different stages of development. The districts
recently organized for Americanization work are laying
the foundations of community desire for self-directed
social activities with the school as social center, though
they may not have arrived at any actual club organiza­
tion. Other schools, somewhat older, have achieved
at least some kind of organization if they have made
progress of the forward-looking sort. The larger school"
of the large city type, with many academic interests
as in commercial, vocational, and Americanization
classes, seems likely to evolve a complexity of clubs
and councils. Lodi, for example, has not yet any
organization of the students in the Americanization
classes, but the Friday night assemblies, with their
excellent and definite topical program of educational
motion pictures and their promotion of an atmosphere
of school hospitality, seems fairly to invite the speedy
organization of the students for social responsibilities
in the life of the school.
In Crockett, membership in the one existing
students organization is voluntary, but includes almost
all in the men’s classes. Brief programs frequently
follow the weekly business meeting. Dues of fifty
cents a month support the social activities. Each class
has a less formal organization, the presidents of the
different classes forming an executive committee for
the nomination of officers for the student body and
also acting as advisory committee.
In Richmond the Americanization classes have
formed a cosmopolitan club, meeting monthly, to which
any one is eligible who has at least his first papers. In
Santa Ana, with its two Mexican sections, one at either
far end of the town, the older night school has a
centrally located building. Mrs. Ricciardi, Director
of Immigrant Education, writes:
We try to have any Mexican within a radius of five miles
feel that the auditorium and community room of that school
are always for Mexican use. * * * The night schools are
loosely organized in the form of clubs. It is the aim this year
to have one president for the two schools, with assistant officers
in each school. By carefully choosing our officers we hope
to throw much of the responsibility for all entertainment upon
the student body.
The Oakland Evening High School is the most
closely organized of any school reporting its social
activities for this article. This is one of the older
evening schools, and its social history ranges from the
old days when the teacher conducted the social affairs
of her individual class, to the complex student body
organization of the present time, into which has been
merged the International Club, a sub-organization of
the school. Some years ago the leaders in the Ameri­
canization classes organized the International Club, the
different classes electing representatives to the general
committee which was the executive body. Its activities
were in the nature of parties and excursions, etc. Mr.
J. H. Allen, the principal, writes:
The International Club being merged into the student body
organization now has the assistance of the general student
body in any of its activities, although the plan is to give, about
twice in each term some form of social activity that is designed
especially for the Americanization classes'. * * * por
last three or four years some of the outstanding events for
the Amerizanization classes have been a patriotic program
put on for American Education Week in the fall term, and in
the spring term the Independence Play, as a compliment to the
newly made citizens. Also each term a separate dance is given
exclusively for the benefit of the Americanization classes.
The activities carried on in our schools through
these organizations are of varied character. The club
at Crockett gives several parties during a semester.
Its outstanding social function, the annual Thanks­
giving dinner, is becoming a tradition. The affair is
always given at the Community Auditorium, and is
the biggest and most elaborate affair of the year. At
Santa Ana the schools have cooperated with a cultured
Mexican who trained his own Mexican pupils for a
Cinco de Mayo program, to which the evening schools
added numbers. Of their own initiative the Mexicans
gave a religious play. Dances are given frequently
and the different classes have parties. For last year
the record is sixty community evenings and assemblies
for singing, six programs, eleven teachers’ parties,
seven school dances and parties. There was an
attendance for the year of 5823. Richmond reports
as follows:
We have indoor picnics, indoor track meets, illustrated
lectures, community singing, suitable observation of the
national holidays by patriotic plays, speeches and songs. Our
most successful venture was an original pageant “The Spirit
of America.”
San Jose has an organization unique in the fact
that the young men organizing the club came into the
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