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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING
SERIES EDITOR: MARGARET ROGERS

Language as a
Social
Determinant of
Health
Translating and Interpreting
the COVID-19 Pandemic

Edited by
Federico Marco Federici
Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

Series Editor
Margaret Rogers
School of Literature and Languages
University of Surrey
Guildford, UK
This series examines the crucial role which translation and interpreting in
their myriad forms play at all levels of communication in today’s world,
from the local to the global. Whilst this role is being increasingly
recognised in some quarters (for example, through European Union
legislation), in others it remains controversial for economic, political and
social reasons. The rapidly changing landscape of translation and
interpreting practice is accompanied by equally challenging developments
in their academic study, often in an interdisciplinary framework and
increasingly reflecting commonalities between what were once considered
to be separate disciplines. The books in this series address specific issues
in both translation and interpreting with the aim not only of charting but
also of shaping the discipline with respect to contemporary practice and
research.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14574
 Federico Marco Federici
Editor

Language as a Social
Determinant of
Health
Translating and Interpreting
the COVID-19 Pandemic
Editor
Federico Marco Federici
Centre for Translation Studies
University College London
London, UK

Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting

ISBN 978-3-030-87816-0    ISBN 978-3-030-87817-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87817-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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 Foreword

Health and wellbeing count among the most precious gifts we can enjoy.
Sometimes, a crisis or an emergency threatens them. This volume sheds
light on the key issue of access to information or services during a time of
crisis such as COVID-19. Access on the part of people who do not com-
municate in the main societal language is gained through language provi-
sion (i.e. provision of translation and/or interpreting services). Translation
and interpreting services, at times provided with limitations or requested
from volunteers without checking quality, other times avoided under the
guise of being costly, or simply ignored, or overlooked, have raised their
profile during the COVID-19 pandemic. Users of spoken languages
became more aware of sign-language as some governments (e.g. Scottish,
Welsh, or Northern Irish government) always had a sign-language inter-
preter in their daily briefings, although others did not (e.g. English gov-
ernment). We read translated news or watched news broadcasted from
every corner of the world and understood it through interpreters.
Translation and interpreting are essential to navigating crises and
emergencies because, through language services, information can be dis-
seminated equally and equitably to linguistically diverse communities
that do not access the societal language. When a crisis or an emergency
occurs, translation and interpreting provide all people the opportunity to
ask questions as well as to express their concerns or fears. Language provi-
sion is key to providing equitable access to institutional, national, and
v
vi Foreword

international resources. At the same time, language provision is an insti-

tutional resource to be shared in a fair and equitable way.
While translation and interpreting have existed for as long as there has
been contact among users of different languages, we continue to encoun-
ter justifications for the challenges of providing language support, or the
inability to overcome language barriers. This volume offers us the oppor-
tunity to deconstruct these two statements. Languages are not barriers
and language support does exist. While, like any other service, translation
and interpreting carry a cost, the cost is minimal compared to the cost of
non-social integration and/or the cost of human life.
Languages, much like identity or diversity, are part and parcel of being
human. Languages, like identities, are diverse, but not barriers, even if
when one may perceive a different language as a problem or a barrier
simply because one cannot use it. Because we are diverse, we do not all
speak one language. This fact does not constitute a barrier to communi-
cation. The expectation that we should all be able to use a lingua franca
during a crisis would be as absurd as the expectation that all human
beings should be of the same race or gender.
As illustrated in this volume, language diversity is addressed through
language provision. In our interconnected world, we communicate with
the help of humans and technology. We resort to language professionals
who, like other professionals, vary in their degree of expertise and experi-
ence as well as in their use of technology. These professionals are transla-
tors, interpreters, language mediators, and language brokers—different
local legislative frameworks and traditions create a continuum of possi-
bilities and professional profiles. By definition, these professionals are
bilinguals, but the relationship between language proficiency and
translation/interpreting ability is not symbiotic, instead it is hyponymic.
Translators and interpreters are freelancers, members of staff in organi-
zations, they own or work for translation/interpreting agencies. They
work for profit and non-profit organizations. They work for government.
At times they also volunteer, like other professional groups. They work
with written, spoken, and sign languages, deploying their knowledge and
skills; they work across two languages or more, they work from a distance
or face to face, they work around the clock, individually or in teams.
Languages are brokered and there is a continuum of needs in which users
 Foreword vii

of non-societal languages seek language provision and some organiza-

tions provide it (World Bank organization, 2003).
Global crises, like a pandemic, affect us all, however, they affect us all
differently. Globalization put these differences on the table. These differ-
ences are many. They may be related to geography; to the healthcare sys-
tems in place in different areas; to governments’ roles or decisions; to
culture, language, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and race. While we
are all connected through our human fabric, this fabric is diverse. Some
differences may be quite evident and constitute facts to account for as we
connect with each other. For example, we live in different geographic
locations with different time zones, we have different needs. Consequently,
we work out our differences, we take into account these facts to connect
with each other. With the self comes the language we use to communi-
cate, to describe, and to interpret our own communities as well as those
of others.
While globalization in areas such as business, education, entertain-
ment, health, marketing may have made us aware of how interconnected
our world is (Pan et al., 2002), globalization has also raised our awareness
on how different our perceptions and beliefs can be and how we see the
world though our own cultural lenses. It is precisely because we express
ourselves through language (whether spoken or signed) that language is
central to working out these differences; language is central to integrate
others rather than to isolate them.
Globalization has been enabled by technological developments which
allow interconnectivity. These developments are accessible, feasible, and
affordable to many but not to all people. Many international organiza-
tions, as well as government and NGOs at national, regional, or local
level continue to help bridge the technological divide, to bring people
closer. However, at the core of being interconnected lies the ability to
access and understand information, to communicate with others. As this
volume demonstrates, countries which did well are those that provide
translation and interpreting services. These services are available and
affordable. There is honestly no justification or excuse for not offering
these services when they do in fact exist.
This volume successfully explores the COVID-19 pandemic through
the lens of access to communication by bringing together studies on
viii Foreword

responses from different areas of the world. Contributors to this volume

present much needed research in healthcare communication during a
pandemic. Consequently, this volume is a valuable contribution to cur-
rent debates on social cohesion and social justice. My hope is that the
new knowledge presented here informs evidence-based policy making.
This will help us ascertain if current policy and practice from different
areas in the world converge or diverge when it comes to protecting the
right to access healthcare, to give informed consent, to hospitalization
and treatment as well as to vaccination during a major crisis like
COVID-19.

Edinburgh, UK Claudia V. Angelelli



References
Angelelli, C. (2018). Cross-border healthcare for all EU Residents? Linguistic
access in the European Union. The Journal of Applied Linguistics and
Professional Practice, 11(2), 113–134.
O’Brien, S., Federici, F. M., Cadwell, P., Marlowe, J., & Gerber, B. (2018).
Language translation during disaster: A comparative analysis of five national
approaches. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (31), 627–636.
Pan, Y., Wong- Scollon, S. & Scollon, R. (2002). Professional communication in
international settings. Blackwell Publishers.
WHO. (2008). World health organization outbreak communication planning
guide. World Health Organization. Retrieved August 6, 2021, from https://
www.who.int/ihr/elibrary/WHOOutbreakCommsPlanngGuide.pdf
World Bank Organization. (2003). A document translation framework for the
World Bank Group. Retrieved August 6, 2021, from https://documents1.
worldbank.org/curated/en/535491468782383662/text/261450
TranslationFramework.txt
 Preface

A crisis is a disruption of ordinary ways of life, caused by an event, calling

for an urgent response, and a strategy to reduce the risks emerging in the
short term and long term with their cascading consequences (Alexander,
2016; O’Brien & Federici, 2019; Seeger, 2006; Sellnow & Seeger, 2013).
The COVID-19 pandemic is an international crisis. Not all risks are
unpredictable; pandemics are expected but not foreseeable. Hence, emer-
gency health relies on training, planning, protocol, and past experience to
deal with the unforeseen. Emergency planning makes dealing with the
unexpected more bearable and effective, as it mitigates and reduces risks.
Striking a balance between unexpected and sudden events and risk reduc-
tion is a central concern of public health planning. Risk communication
is an integral part of mitigating the impact of a crisis (Reynolds & Lutfy,
2018); large-scale events such as pandemics have been studied in order to
create protocols and plans to reduce their potential impact (Crouse
Quinn, 2008; Hewitt et al., 2008; Petts et al., 2010). However, multilin-
gual risk communication is rarely well-integrated in emergency plan-
ning—even the influential ‘Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication
(CERC)’ manual (Reynolds & Lutfy, 2018) mentions linguistic diversity
only in passing.
This is a problem. Translators and interpreters (T&Is), if mentioned in
emergency plans and risk communication strategies, figured as a service
to be commissioned as part of logistic arrangements to be completed at
ix
x Preface

the onset of a response, until recently. The Project Sphere (2018) consid-
ered their role as essential in planning humanitarian operations focused
on real community engagement. Why did most countries face poor levels
of preparedness regarding multilingual communication at the start of
COVID-19? Why did emergency plans underestimate the need for inter-
preting, signing, and translation in public campaigns of this magnitude?
Of course, eventually translations appeared and have continued to appear.
Yet, at the onset, limited translation and interpreting capacity was a logis-
tic, health and safety, and organizational problem (Li et al., 2020; Wang,
2020; Zhang & Wu, 2020); during the pandemic some governments
gradually became organized (e.g. see detailed analysis of Ireland in
O’Brien et al., 2021). In most countries, speakers of non-main languages
have relied on multiple sources of information to understand the mitigat-
ing measures and restrictions in place.
Professional T&Is, bilingual staff members, volunteer bilingual nurs-
ing teams, and local staff helped the International Federation of the Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to disseminate information via
their capillary local networks from January 2020. Many have drawn on
their linguistic expertise to contribute to communicating risks associated
with the spread of and infection by COVID-19, including massively
open and international crowdsourcing activities (Zhang & Wu, 2020),
migrants’ support (Ahmad & Hillman, 2021), grassroots organizations,
charities, NGOs (Respond Crisis Translation, Translators without
Borders, and others), foundations (Engage Africa Foundation,
Endangered Language Project), social media (see Hu’s Chap. 7 in this
collection), professionals volunteering (see the example discussed in
Al-Sharafi’s Chap. 6), community volunteers (see an example discussed
in Teng’s Chap. 11), healthcare NGOs (e.g. Doctors of the World,
EMERGENCY, Médecins Sans Frontières, etc.), and many others.
In The Lancet, Horton (2020) encourages scientists to reframe the pan-
demic in relation to its unequal impact on members of society. Not only
a viral outbreak, COVID-19 is in fact a syndemic event. For Singer and
Clair (2003: 428), ‘syndemic points to the determinant importance of
social conditions in the health of individuals and populations’ (emphasis
in the original). The disproportionately unjust impact on socially and
economically vulnerable groups makes the epidemiological event a
 Preface xi

syndemic (see discussion of its translation, in Spoturno’s Chap. 4).

COVID-19 has paraded all the destructive powers of endemic health
inequality locally (e.g. private vs public healthcare, North Italy/South
Italy), continentally (e.g. response success rates China/India), or interna-
tionally (with the UK, Brazil, and the USA performing terribly on con-
taining the virus spread, and on letting it have an impact directly
correlated with the health inequality embedded in their societies; see
Lawrence, 2020; Paremoer et al., 2021). Additionally, at the time of writ-
ing, inequities in the vaccination roll out make some countries vulnerable
to new waves (e.g. Peru), while others are recovering more quickly by
accessing more types and quantities of vaccines (e.g. the USA, the UK).
Contributors to this volume discuss these issues engaging with the
relationship between risk communication and T&I.

Risk in Public Health

Successful communication in crisis contexts is extremely complex to
achieve and extraordinarily significant in mitigating the impact of risks
and their cascading effects. Defining the significance of effective multilin-
gual communication in public health entails contributing to saving lives
and reducing morbidity. Risk communication is well-studied; it is worth
narrowing the focus here to consider only risk communication connected
with mitigating the impact of epidemiological hazards, such as SARS
coronaviruses or those of flu pandemic. Before Trump’s administration
reduced federal funds, disempowered, and regularly discredited or under-
mined the activities of the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention
(CDC), this US body had been extremely influential in establishing prac-
tical, actionable, and successful protocols supporting disaster manage-
ment and public health. Its practices include communication strategies,
explained in its Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC)
manual (Reynolds & Lutfy, 2018). CERC is founded on six principles:
‘(1) be first; (2) be right; (3) be credible; (4) express empathy; (5) pro-
mote action; (6) show respect’ (Reynolds & Lutfy, 2018: 3). In the cur-
rent collection, Al-Sharafi (Chap. 6) analyses credibility in relation to
encouraging action and gaining respect among multilingual
xii Preface

communities, who are excluded from the most widely used channel of
communication. During the response phase of any disaster or emergency
cycle, these principles are all essential and difficult to respect, which is
why preparedness and planning are crucial especially in terms of com-
munication. The principles are valid beyond the response phase, as they
also pertain to public health campaigns (e.g. against smoking, in favour
of healthy lifestyles, etc.); in fact, ‘Risk communication provides the
community with information about the specific type (good or bad) and
magnitude (strong or weak) of an outcome from an exposure or behavior’
(ibid.: 4). To engender action and positive outcomes, risk communica-
tion depends on becoming credible and showing respect; creating obsta-
cles, such as limiting provision of information in other languages by not
including live signers, interpreters, and distribution of translated infor-
mation in multiple formats, fails to establish a respectful relationship of
trust. In Communicating Risk in Public Health Emergencies. A WHO
Guideline for Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) policy and practice
(WHO, 2017), the glossary entry for ‘Emergency risk communication
(ERC)’ describes this type of communication as:

an intervention performed not just during but also before (as part of pre-
paredness activities) and after (to support recovery) the emergency phase,
to enable everyone at risk to take informed decisions to protect themselves,
their families and communities against threats to their survival, health and
well-being. (WHO, 2017, p. vii)

Even countries once able to deploy professionals from extensive T&I

networks were short of all combinations; the problem was anticipated in
evidence emerging after the 2009 H1N1 (Swine flu) pandemic, as this
passage assessing the UK pandemic preparedness clearly stated in 2010,

We can expect differential ability to access information amongst those

from lower socioeconomic groups. Yet, these will be the very people poten-
tially most at risk during a pandemic and least able to take personal protec-
tive measures (including time for recuperation from illness). Careful
attention will be needed to communication in different forms and lan-
guages as well as opportunities for people to listen to messages, not just
read them. (Petts et al., 2010, p. 157)
 Preface xiii

In England, sign language interpreting was not even provided during

the COVID-19 daily conferences, defying legal requirements set out by
the UK’s 2010 Equality Act. Analysing poor communication strategies
through the lens of definitions of health risk in order to understand their
full consequences makes for grim thoughts. The probability of that part
of the population with limited English proficiency needing extra infor-
mation in their own language in stressful situations increases risks in a
multiplicative way:

Risk is commonly defined as a multiplicative combination of the probabil-

ity of a hazardous event occurring (e.g., smoking) and the severity of the
resulting negative consequences (e.g., lung cancer). This definition of risk,
as ‘probability × severity,’ implies that greater probability and greater sever-
ity result in greater overall risk (Slovic, 2000). (Renner et al., 2015, p. 702)

Health risks, especially those arising from biological hazards, are magni-
fied when social factors (e.g. limited language proficiency) intertwine
with a hazard. This was the situation, for example, when mitigating mea-
sures were (belatedly) taken to protect the UK population.
Table 1 uses data provided by the John Hopkins’s Coronavirus Research
Centre, ordered from the highest to the lowest number of deaths per
100,000 people. Many factors determined high COVID-19 casualties.
The figures in Table 1 indicate that there is a correlation in the 20 nations
with the highest death toll between their shaky communication strategies
and the impact of social determinants of health—in the main language
and even worse in other languages used locally—and lack of compliance
with mitigating measures, which caused second, more deadly waves (see
Lee et al., 2021; Vardavas et al., 2021; Varghese et al., 2021). The impact
on these countries’ linguistically diverse populations, often concentrated
around densely populated urban areas, also correlates with healthcare sys-
tems weakened over years of neoliberal approaches that cut costs in pub-
licly funded and managed health systems through austerity (northern
Italy, the UK), despite these health systems being known for their effec-
tiveness and efficiency in the long run (van Barneveld et al., 2020). Dense
and populous areas have shown the vulnerabilities of cities (Sharifi &
Khavarian-Garmsir, 2020); and neighbourhoods with the largest
xiv Preface

Table 1 Mortality rates by country (Coronavirus Research Centre, 2021)

Confirmed Case/ Deaths/100 K
Country cases Deaths fatality POP.
10 Brazil 16,471,600 461,057 2.80% 218.46
14 Italy 4,213,055 126,002 3.00% 208.97
16 Poland 2,871,371 73,682 2.60% 194.05
17 United 4,496,823 128,037 2.80% 191.57
Kingdom
18 United States 33,251,939 594,306 1.80% 181.06
21 Argentina 3,732,263 77,108 2.10% 171.58
22 Spain 3,668,658 79,905 2.20% 169.73
46 Tunisia 343,374 12,574 3.70% 107.52
62 Israel 839,453 6407 0.80% 70.77
63 Canada 1,384,373 25,451 1.80% 67.71
74 Oman 213,784 2303 1.10% 46.29
94 India 27,894,800 325,972 1.20% 23.86
95 Saudi Arabia 448,284 7334 1.60% 21.4
96 Qatar 217,041 554 0.30% 19.56
99 Indonesia 1,809,926 50,262 2.80% 18.57
139 Australia 30,096 910 3.00% 3.59
140 Guinea-Bissau 3761 68 1.80% 3.54
171 New Zealand 2672 26 1.00% 0.53
174 China 102,960 4846 4.70% 0.35

culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse communities within the

cities saw disproportionate incidence of cases (see Lawrence, 2020).
Out of the 180 countries considered by the John Hopkins Coronavirus
Research Centre, Table 1 offers only an overview of the countries men-
tioned in this volume. The figures clearly show how countries that
adopted more reliable, credible, empathetic, and trustworthy risk com-
munication strategies also reduced the health risks for the whole popula-
tion. China, for example, adopted extremely strict and successful
protocols early on to stop the spread and control waves arising from
incoming flights. New Zealand had proportionally one of the most effec-
tive pandemic plans, and it was accompanied by an extensively multilin-
gual messaging (Brandon & Maang, 2022). The figures are strongly
indicative of a relationship between language and the other factors pro-
ducing cascading effects on number of cases and mortality rates.
 Preface xv

The Contributors’ Aims

This volume engages with examples of health communication during the
COVID-19 pandemic from across the world. Whereas interpreting needs
may be sudden and unforeseen, this volume shows how exploiting exist-
ing data and expertise could make translation into a significant risk
reduction, or risk mitigation tool (Federici & O’Brien, 2020). The con-
tributors use different data collection methods and various theoretical
ways of interpreting the data. All chapters share a common denominator:
T&I needs to be better integrated in healthcare communication and in
risk communication to mitigate or reduce the impact of hazards on pub-
lic health. The lack or approximation of T&I services, engendering wide-
spread needs for more or better translations, remains a leitmotif
throughout the volume.
The book is subdivided into four parts entitled ‘Terminologies and
Narratives’, ‘Translating COVID-19 Credibility, Trust, Reliability’,
‘Health and Safety in Risk Communication’, and ‘Communities and
Translation’. In these parts, the contributors engage with case studies
emerging from national and cross-national examples of issues in dissemi-
nating information in a timely, useful, and trustworthy manner during
COVID-19’s first and second waves (2020–2021), and the linguistic pat-
terns that influence discourse, narratives, credibility, and trust. To open
the volume, Federici in Chap. 1 makes the case for considering transla-
tion and interpreting as integral components to achieve higher levels of
health equity by discussing multilingual communication strategies in
relation to the notion of social determinants of health.
In the first part, Chatti in Chap. 2 looks at metaphors in public health
communication, with particular attention to Tunisia. Chatti argues that
the global outbreak of COVID-19 continued the existing approach to
the use of figurative language in medical contexts, namely war metaphors.
Building on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the chapter explores the mul-
tiple correspondences between war and COVID-19 as an illustration of
the war/fight/battle framing often adopted in healthcare communication.
The chapter engages the reader to consider whether a reframe is needed
to evoke hope and optimism that affordable and effective vaccines can
bring an end to the pandemic. Dawood in Chap. 3 focuses on Australia.
xvi Preface

This chapter analyses translations into Arabic of several English Covid-19

awareness posters, issued by the Government of New South Wales.
Analysing the posters, through the lenses of Postcolonial Theory of
Translation, Dawood puts forward provocative and grounded reflections
on the ways in which English as the dominant language of scientific com-
munication negatively influences translations. From layouts to sentence
structure, the Arabic translations analysed manifest a degree of linguistic
hegemony that increases the risk of confusion and uncertainty in the
target readers, when the leaflets should be informative, clear, accessible,
and trustworthy. Spoturno in Chap. 4 contributes to discussing the role
of translation in the communication of health risks in relation to the
circulation of health narratives from abroad that coexist with local, spe-
cific narratives of risk mitigation. Focusing on Argentina, Sportuno
assesses the different trajectories of journalistic debates straddling on the
one hand presentations of advancements, risk protocols, and recommen-
dations made in Argentina for its residents, and COVID-19 findings and
debates imported from abroad through translations from English on the
other hand. The chapter investigates the specific role of translation in
communicating risks locally and contextualizing the pandemic globally.
Using a corpus of news articles published online in Clarín, La Nación,
Infobae, Página 12, and Perfil in Spanish, and English articles from The
New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC News, and The Guardian,
Spoturno highlights how narratives emerged and continue to develop in
the journalistic discourse around COVID-19.
In the second part, Nugroho, Prananta, Septemuryantoro, and Basari
in Chap. 5 show the urgency of carrying out translations to access crucial
information in Indonesia. In March 2020, the Indonesian government
commissioned translations of guidelines detailing hospital treatments
and mitigation of the contagion. This chapter reports on a project focused
on assessing the translation, and its reception, of the Guidance for Corona
Virus Disease 2019 (Liang, Feng, and Li, 2020). Written in Chinese, this
text was translated into English and published in February 2020; the
English version was then translated into Indonesian. The chapter reports
the results of the mixed-method approach used to evaluate via a question-
naire the accuracy of the Indonesian translation (involving professional
translators as evaluators) and its reception. Surveying specialist readers
 Preface xvii

(doctors) and members of the public, the author’s reception study aims to
ascertain their understanding of the Indonesian version. The findings of
the project are discussed in relation to mistranslation and maltranslation,
which are important concepts in medical translation. Al-Sharafi in Chap.
6 focuses on the strategies adopted by the Omani government in estab-
lishing credibility in its dissemination of information, so that trust in the
messages would endanger compliance with the restrictions and mitigat-
ing measures. The chapter uses a corpus of 183 official statements and 23
press conferences issued in Arabic by the Omani Covid-19 Supreme
Committee over a period of nine months from January 2020 to February
2021 and their official translations into English, explaining the recruit-
ment of translators, and development of a strategy to complete the trans-
lations into English. The discussion is then contextualized by taking into
account the linguistic diversity of Oman beyond English, putting forward
considerations regarding the effectiveness of adopting this bilingual strat-
egy for trust-building which still excluded many residents, that is, those
foreign nationals who do not speak Arabic or English. Hu in Chap. 7
looks at the relationship between official sources of information in trans-
lation and additional sources of information in Chinese among Australian
Chinese-speaking communities. Focusing on the abundance of (mis)
information during the COVID-19 pandemic, the chapter considers
how multilingual communities were more exposed to poor or unreliable
information, as linguistic and cultural difficulties interfere with distin-
guishing truth from falsity. The chapter investigates the communicative
effects of the Australian government’s translated COVID-19 information
in relation to three types of trust (interpersonal, institutional, and cul-
tural). The findings encourage Hu to suggest that translators could act as
ethical filters in the context of the COVID-19 infodemic, choosing what
and how to translate, and what translation norms to obey to avoid mis-
representing risks, even when they were operating in unofficial channels
of communication.
In the third part, the relationship between phraseologies, terminolo-
gies, and expectations dictated by health and safety regulations are anal-
ysed from two different perspectives. Kodura in Chap. 8 focuses on safety
instructions, related to COVID-19 mitigation measures, by comparing
English versions with their Polish renderings. Drawing on her study of
xviii Preface

the pragmalinguistic shifts introduced in Polish when translating from

English, through a detailed analysis, Kodura observes possible correla-
tions between pragmalinguistic dimensions of health and safety discourse
and the public’s compliance with the dissemination of information
regarding the mitigating measures adopted by the Polish government.
Rossato and Nocella in Chap. 9 consider the efforts made in translating
health and safety regulations for cruises to support the tourism industry
in its recovery from the impact of COVID-19. Issues of safety concern-
ing the promotion of COVID-19 measures are analysed by engaging
with the websites of four different cruise lines (MSC, Costa Crociere,
Royal Caribbean, and P&O Cruises). As cruises can be overcrowded
spaces, heightening the risk of spreading viruses, health and safety dis-
course became paramount for the industry during the pandemic. Drawing
on investigations of the language of tourism and cruises, the chapter
examines how cruise lines’ websites talk about risk, safety, and preven-
tion. Rossato and Nocella use multimodal and discourse analysis to com-
pare examples of both written texts and non-verbal content (images,
videos, colours). The analysis focuses on cross-cultural elements and the
role of images in localizing the message across the different languages.
In the fourth part, Pena-Díaz in Chap. 10 reports on a study con-
ducted in La Paz hospital in Madrid after the end of the main lockdown
in Spain. The chapter provides an analysis of intercultural communica-
tion in health settings as perceived by users of interpreting and transla-
tion services. In particular, it focuses on migrants as users of public service
interpreting services, and through qualitative data collection (surveys and
interviews) the chapter seeks to understand whether there is any correla-
tion between T&I services and the users’ perception of risks. Participants’
responses are used to assess the participants’ perception of risks associated
with COVID-19 and to identify risk communication strategies and their
effectiveness. Pena-Díaz’s findings indicate that for many participants the
perceived quality of access to healthcare services is proportional to their
satisfaction with the interpreting and translation services available. This
relationship in turn influences trust in institutions and the participants’
perception of risk.
Teng in Chap. 11 assesses the involvement of citizen translators in
crowdsourcing projects through the conceptual framework of ‘imagined
 Preface xix

community’. Focusing on communities of citizen translators who pro-

vided translations into Chinese during the COVID-19 pandemic, Teng
discusses three levels of imagined community engagement: weak,
medium, and high. In relation to these levels, the chapter assesses the citi-
zen translators’ familiarity with the targeted community and their ability
to produce translations of appropriate quality for their target audience.
Reflecting on its findings, the chapter considers the training of citizen
translators and the role of community engagement in risk communica-
tion. Specifically, it focuses on (1) remote community engagement in
contrast to onsite interactions; (2) recruitment of citizen translators
among multilingual communities in relation to trust-building and soli-
darity; and (3) the relationship between language needs and channels that
grant access to information in the languages preferred by the affected
communities.

The Volume’s Aims

All contributors and the volume as a whole suggest that there needs to be
political willingness to ensure that T&I services contribute to making
information about risks accessible to all members of multilingual com-
munities. Many chapters also identify a recurrent issue: lack of prepared-
ness and planning for inclusion of T&I services in the public health
campaigns. For instance, guidelines to respond to a SARS-based disease
were published in English in 2004 and revised twice (WHO, 2014); the
scramble to translate new guidance in February 2020 could have benefit-
ted from having translated the existing information on SARS-type dis-
eases before. Translation of these materials could have informed practices
in countries that faced the COVID-19 outbreaks early on. It is difficult
to understand why guidelines of this type anticipating the impact of cer-
tain hazards are not routinely translated into widely used regional lan-
guages, prioritizing regions with under-resourced healthcare systems.
Taking time to produce, assess, and validate high quality translations of
these documents means being better prepared. Translations of guidelines
for known and expected epidemics and pandemics could create language
assets that would help to inform translators, interpreters, and sign
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 To sum up, the Gary school forms a children’s community, which
aims to provide the practical natural education of the old school,
shop, and home which educated our forefathers. It is a necessary
evolution and reorganization of the public school to meet the
changed social and industrial conditions of the modern city. The
school community, by providing a fourfold activity of work, study, and
play, uses the children’s time and keeps them from the demoralizing
influence of the streets. In the “auditorium” it provides a public
theater which may motivate all the work and study. By coöperating
with all the community agencies which provide wholesome activities
for children, it makes them all more valuable and effective. And by
making the school as far as possible a self-sustaining community, it
gives meaning and purpose to all the work, trains the children for the
outside world, and cultivates the social virtues.
 IV

PROGRAMS: THE SCHOOL AS A PUBLIC UTILITY

Schools such as those in Gary, with their elaborate equipment

and special school enterprises, obviously require methods of
financing radically different from those of the ordinary public school.
It is, perhaps, this problem of how a small and relatively poor city like
Gary could afford to maintain such schools that has aroused the
interest of practical school men in the Gary plan. When the public
schools were first started in the new town, the authorities found
themselves in a peculiarly difficult situation, owing to the limited
funds at hand and the demands of a rapidly increasing population.
The conventional method of meeting the situation would have been
to erect inferior buildings, to omit playgrounds, laboratories,
workshops, to employ cheap teachers, to increase the size of
classes, to limit the yearly term, or else to try to accommodate all the
children in a few buildings on half-time work. These have been the
methods which our large cities have almost universally felt
themselves obliged to adopt when confronted with these problems of
economy and congestion.
The other possible method—and this seems to be the unique
contribution of the Gary plan to the economics of education—was to
treat the public school as a public service, and apply to it all those
principles of scientific direction which have been perfected for the
public use of railroads, telephones, parks, and other “public utilities.”
The new city of Gary could create thoroughly modern, completely
equipped school plants, and operate them so as to get the maximum
of service from them. Superintendent Wirt and the school board
believed that this plan would be the true economy.
Mr. Wirt says, “You can afford any kind of school desired if
ordinary economic public-service principles are applied to public-
school management. The first principle in turning waste into profit in
school management is to use every facility all the time for all the
people.” Instead, therefore, of counting their financial resources and
then deciding what limited educational facilities could be provided
with them, the Gary authorities seem to have decided upon the ideal
school plant desired to meet the needs of the modern city child, and
then to have proceeded, by the ingenious application of principles
well recognized in business and industry, to utilize their resources so
as to support the desired facilities. The Gary plan has made evident
the great wastes involved in the conventional methods of managing
the public-school plant. All school men will agree with
Superintendent Wirt when he says that “most certainly playgrounds,
gymnasiums, and swimming-pools are good things for all children to
have. I believe that gardens, workshops, drawing and music studios
are good things for children to have. I believe that museums, art
galleries, and libraries are good things for children to use
systematically and regularly. In my judgment opportunities for
religious instruction, for private instruction in music, and for assisting
in desirable home work are good things for children. So also are
coöperative classes between the academic school and the industrial
activities of the school business departments, and between the
school and industrial activities outside the school. In what way will
the use of these facilities handicap a child in his efforts to secure an
education?”
The answer is, of course, “in no way.” These are the things the
most advanced higher schools and wealthy private schools are
providing for their pupils. School men may have desired to provide
all these things for all the children of the elementary schools too, but
rarely has economic skill combined with educational philosophy to
bring such an ideal within the bounds of possibility. The Gary school
seems to have found a way. It has actually realized the ideal, and
made practicable that school-community life which other schools
have only envisaged. It has found that any kind of school desired
may be had if classrooms, auditoriums, playgrounds, etc., are in
constant use all day long by all the children in alternating groups and
out of school hours by adults.
“The modern city,” says Superintendent Wirt, “is largely the result
of the application of the principle of the common use of public
facilities that we need for our personal use only part of the time. We
are willing that other people use public services when we cannot use
them. How many street-cars and what sort of service could we afford
if each citizen had to have his own private street-car seat for his own
exclusive use?” Yet the educational ideal in school management
generally remains what is set forth in the report of the 1913 Part-
Time Committee of the New York public schools,—“Every pupil is
entitled to an individual seat and desk. The teacher is entitled to the
exclusive possession of a classroom....”
In the light of the Gary plan this ideal is absurd. It means, as has
been discovered in the New York experience, that school facilities
can never be made to catch up to school population. And it is absurd
because it assumes that all persons in school want to do the same
thing at the same time. But all “modern public conveniences are
made possible only by their common use and the fact that we do not
want to use the same public conveniences at the same moment. We
are willing to have some one else use our public library, look at our
pictures in our public museum, walk in our public park, sleep in our
Pullman berth or in our hotel bedroom, or travel in our steamboat
when we are otherwise engaged.” It proves to be as financially
prohibitive to attempt to provide an individual desk and seat for every
school-child as it is to provide an individual seat for every citizen who
may sit in the park. “The great masses of children in our city schools
can never have ample play spaces, suitable auditoriums,
gymnasiums and swimming-pools, workshops, libraries, museums,
or even ordinary schoolrooms for study and recitation, if all children
at the same time must be using each of these facilities separately.”
The more people use these public services, the cheaper they
become for each one of us. And the more evenly the public use is
distributed, the more valuable becomes the service to each one of
us. “Increasing the number of persons using any public facility either
under public or private ownership betters the service for all, provided
the load can be uniformly distributed during operating hours. The
problem with a public lighting or transportation service is to eliminate
‘peak-loads’ as far as possible.”
We have had constantly before us the gradual extension of the
principle of multiple service of public facilities. The Gary plan makes
the public school the last of these public services to come under the
operation of these principles. As generally managed the public
school has not recognized these principles. The effect of its
administrative methods, its rigid school hours, its uniform curriculum,
its emphasis on academic work, has been rather to increase the
“peak-loads” and thus inadvertently to increase the costs of
operation. In many schools, the use of the “auditorium” does not
average more than ten minutes a day for each day of the year, and
the playgrounds barely an hour each day of the year. And for every
hour that shops, etc., are empty, there is a waste and leakage, which
would be permitted in no other public-service institution.
The Gary plan, therefore, has worked out a multiple use of the
school plant in the most comprehensive form. By distributing classes
in alternating groups, so that every department and room is in use as
nearly as possible every hour of the eight-hour day, the “peak-loads”
are prevented and the costs of operation reduced to the minimum.
This system, variously called a “rotation-of-crops” or a “platoon”
system, permits almost the actual doubling of the capacity of the
school plant. Two duplicate schools may function together in the
same building all day long. This “duplicate-school” plan is not, it must
be observed, that used in some cities, where one school occupies
the rooms for a few hours while the other remains at home, to take
its turn in the rooms while the other goes out. That is merely a “part-
time” scheme, and only accentuates the usual evils of fragmentary
schooling and demoralizing street life. The Gary plan involves two
distinct schools, known as the “X” and the “Y” schools, each of which
has the entire program and the full day. The Gary plan, in other
words, can accommodate twice the ordinary number in a school-
building, not by shortening the time for each child, but actually by
lengthening it.
How this plan works out in detail for a school unit of eight classes
may be shown by the following program, which was used in the
Jefferson School when Superintendent Wirt first came to Gary. The
Jefferson School has been described as a conventional school-
building, which was adapted to the Gary plan by the institution of
shops, gymnasium, etc., and the conversion of classrooms into
laboratories and studios. The program shows how a small eight-
room school, ordinarily accommodating three hundred and twenty
children (forty to a class), may, with a small auditorium, playground,
attic gymnasium, and basement shops accommodate two duplicate
schools of eight teachers each, with a total of six hundred and forty
children. The first column gives the teachers,—grade teachers for
the regular studies of the eight grades, and special teachers for the
special activities. The second column gives the rooms where the
work is conducted; the other columns give the distribution of time.
“1X” means the first grade of the “X” school; “1Y” means the first
grade of the “Y” school, etc. The program shows the ingenious
distribution of classes throughout the school and throughout the
course of the day,—six hours in this case, to which one hour and a
quarter must be added for lunch-time.
Studies Forenoon Afternoon
Teachers Room 90 90 90 90
min. min. min. min.
1st Grade Classroom 1X 1Y 1X 1Y
2d Grade Classroom 2X 2Y 2X 2Y
3d Grade Classroom 3X 3Y 3X 3Y
4th Grade Classroom 4X 4Y 4X 4Y
5th Grade Classroom 5X 5Y 5X 5Y
6th Grade Classroom 6X 6Y 6X 6Y
7th Grade Classroom 7X 7Y 7X 7Y
8th Grade Classroom 8X 8Y 8X 8Y
 Music Auditorium 1Y 2Y 1X 2X 3Y 4Y 3X 4X
Drawing Basement 3Y 4Y 3X 4X 1Y 2Y 1X 2X
Literature Library 5Y 6Y 5X 6X 7Y 8Y 7X 8X
Science or Basement 7Y 8Y 7X 8X 5Y 6Y 5X 6X
manual arts
{Attic 2Y 1Y 2X 1X 6Y 5Y 6X 5X
Physical {Playground 4Y 3Y 4X 3X 8Y 7Y 8X 7X
education
(2 {Attic 6Y 5Y 6X 5X 2Y 1Y 4X 3X
teachers
and
principal) {Playground 8Y 7Y 8X 7X 4Y 3Y 2X 1X
According to this program, only eight regular schoolrooms are
required for the sixteen classes. While these eight classrooms are
occupied by the classes engaged in the regular studies, the eight
other classes are engaged in special activities in other parts of the
school plant, in basement shops, attic gymnasium, or playground.
Half the day is given to the regular studies, and half to the special
activities. The regular studies occupy two periods of ninety minutes
each, one in the forenoon and one in the afternoon. The same
amount of time is given to the special activities, but the ninety-minute
periods are divided into two forty-five-minute periods. The time
devoted to the regular studies is divided as the teachers see fit. Each
teacher has but one class at a time, and the way in which the time is
distributed between the arithmetic, reading, spelling, geography,
history, etc., depends upon the needs of those in the class. It will be
seen from the program that each class of the two duplicate schools
has time not only for three hours a day of the traditional school
studies, but for three hours of play and special activities besides.
And since this is the daily program, each class gets this varied work,
study, and play every day, and not, as is the case of the special work
in most public schools, only once or twice a week. Thus, according
to this program, the day’s work for the third grade in the “X” school
would be mapped out in this way,—regular studies, drawing or
manual training, playground or gymnasium, lunch, regular studies,
music, and playground again. The sixth grade in the “Y” school has a
program of physical education, music or literature, regular studies,
lunch, play, science or manual arts, and regular studies again. The
program shows not only how double the number of classes are
accommodated, but how all are given a longer and more varied day
than is possible in the ordinary school.
This program represents the simplest framework of the application
of public-service principles to the daily school program, with its
multiple use of facilities. It is known as the “Old Gary School
Program,” and has, of course, been much modified and refined and
complicated as the need for flexibility and for the further
departmentalizing of studies has arisen, and as it has had to be
adapted to schools of different sizes. As here presented it does not
include the high-school classes. The program of the complete school
plant is much more elaborate. The “Old Gary School Program,”
however, contains the essential principles of the distribution of
classes and of school time.
Since September, 1913, a new and more satisfactory program has
been followed in the four larger Gary schools. The new school day is
eight and one quarter hours in length, and the work is divided into
four groups, as follows:—

Group Program Hours

1. History and geography, English and 2
mathematics
2. Manual work, science, drawing, music 2
3. Auditorium 1
4. Play, physical training, application 2

Lunch 1¼

The first group of studies is conducted in the ordinary classrooms;

the second group in the shops, laboratories, and studios; the third
group in the auditorium; the fourth group in the gymnasiums,
swimming-pools, playrooms and playgrounds. Four groups of
children are simultaneously engaged in these four different
departments throughout the day. If A represents one half of the
classes of grades 1 to 4; B, one half of grades 5 to 8; C, the other
half of grades 1 to 4; and D, the other half of grades 5 to 8—then A
and B together will represent the “X” school of our old program, and
C and D together will represent the “Y” school, each school with its
own corps of teachers and classes of all grades from 1 to 8. The new
program for the duplicate school then works out in operation as
follows. (The new day is an hour longer.)

Time Studies for

Group Group Group 3 Group

1[2] 2 4
8.15- 9.15 A B CD
9.15- B A C D
10.15
10.15- C D A B
11.15
11.15- D C Lunch-
12.15 hour
for A B
12.15- A B Lunch-
1.15 hour
for C D
1.15- 2.15 B A D C
2.15- 3.15 C D B A
3.15- 4.15 D C — AB
4.15- 5.00 Playgrounds, gymnasiums, and shops open for
volunteers.

2. See preceding table.

 Since C D, or the “Y” school, has physical education the first hour
in the morning, and A B, or the “X” school, has it the last hour of the
afternoon, pupils in the “Y” school are permitted to come an hour
later in the morning, and the pupils in the “X” school are permitted to
leave an hour earlier in the afternoon. It will be observed from this
program that only one fourth of the pupils are engaged in group 1
during any hour of the day. Four separate classes are, therefore,
accommodated in each regular classroom. Consequently, the
capacity of the school plant is four times that of the regular
classrooms. But since a number of rooms which would otherwise be
used for classrooms are used for laboratories and studios, the net
capacity of the school plant operating under the new program is, as
under the old program, twice the capacity of the total number of
classrooms.
In the lower grades it is found desirable to use for formal physical
training, half an hour out of the two hours assigned to group 2. An
exchange is, therefore, made with the grammar and high-school
grades, which are assigned to the regular classrooms for an
additional hour of English and mathematics. In all grades the time
assigned to group 4 is divided between the teachers of physical
education and play, and the teachers of the subjects in groups 1 and
2. In the lower grades, teachers of the regular studies use their share
of the time—one hour—in games and constructive plays that apply
the subject-matter taught in the classes. This is the “application”
work which is so distinctive a feature of the Gary school. It is planned
systematically to give the formal work of the school opportunity for
expression through activity. The music and literature teachers use
the “application” period for folk-dances, musical games, dramatics,
modeling in clay and sand, and for free imaginative play and
construction. This “application” work is carried on informally in the
broad halls or in corners of the playgrounds and playrooms.
Whatever work has permanent value or interest may then be
practiced for presentation in the “auditorium” period. The nature-
study and science teachers use the application period for the care of
the lawns, trees, shrubbery, the conservatories, the gardens, the
animal pets. In the upper grades, mathematics teachers use this
period for the practical measuring and planning of the various
mechanical construction projects of the shops or grounds, or in
practical accounting in connection with the clerical work of the
school. In other words, it is in the “application” periods that that work
is done which contributes to the school community life which has
been described in the chapter on “The School as a Community.”
In the lower grades, “application” takes largely the form of games.
In the upper grades, the industrial and science work is used as the
basis. Practical instruction is given by the shop and laboratory
teachers, in addition to that given by the regular teachers. The
special teacher has his pupils for one hour in the classroom, followed
by two hours in the shop or laboratory where direct application is
made of the theoretical instruction. This extra time is taken out of
that assigned to group 4.
The division of time between the various activities in the new
program therefore works out as follows:—
For grades 1 to 3:—
Language and mathematics 2 hours
Music, literature and expression, 1 hour
gymnastics
Application 1 hour
Auditorium 1 hour
Lunch 1 hour
Manual work and nature-study 1 hour
Free play 1 hour

For the other grades, 4 to 8:—

Language, mathematics, history, geography 2 hours
Science and manual work 2 hours
Mathematics and English taught by shop and 1 hour
laboratory instructors
Physical training and play 1 hour
Auditorium 1 hour
 Lunch 1 hour

This is the new program for a school of eight grades. In the case
of the complete school plant, such as those of the Emerson and
Froebel Schools in Gary, with their twelve grades and their forty or
more classes apiece, the program becomes much more
complicated. But the division of time follows essentially the outlines
given above, the high-school classes resembling the upper grammar
grades’ distribution of time and subjects.
The noteworthy thing about this program, apart from the ingenious
and successful multiple use of the school plant it represents, is the
equable distribution of time between the “regular studies” and the
“special activities.” In the Gary school, the “special work,” more or
less an appendage in the ordinary public school, is as regular as the
“regular work.” Yet the amount of academic work is no less than that
in the ordinary schools. The various fundamental groups are
participated in on equal terms. No subject is slighted, no age is
slighted. The extended school day, which absorbs the “street and
alley time” of the city child, affords ample opportunity for all activities.
No activity is continued long enough to cause fatigue, while the
constant daily cultivation of each activity provides the constant drill
and the thoroughness of training which the ordinary school, with its
short day and crowded curriculum, is compelled to slight. Such a
program seems to be a highly rational distribution of school activities,
as ingenious from the point of view of educational engineering as it is
pedagogically sound. By treating the daily use of the schools as a
public service, the Gary program obtains, for twice the number of
children ordinarily accommodated, twice the number of facilities
ordinarily provided. Each individual is immensely benefited because
all are served. “The only reason why the public—that is, ourselves
collectively—can afford to provide things for each of us individually
that we cannot provide for ourselves privately, is that collectively we
secure a multiple use of the facilities.”
The same principles of administrative economy—an economy
which creates rather than impoverishes—are applied to the yearly
schedule as to the daily program. The Gary authorities find that they
cannot afford to let their plant stand idle two or three months of the
year, and are therefore working toward an all-year school. This effort
coincides with a growing general belief that the long summer
vacations not only demoralize the city child, but are a great waste of
educational influence. At the present time state laws hinder the
completion of the all-year plan. The Gary schools now have ten
months of regular compulsory school, and ten weeks of voluntary
vacation school, but they are working toward an organization of four
quarters of twelve weeks each. This plan was approximated by
Superintendent Wirt in the Bluffton schools before he came to Gary.
Under this scheme pupils are required to attend any three of the four
quarters, attendance in the remaining quarter being wholly voluntary.
In Bluffton it was found that the attendance of the younger children
for the summer quarter was greater than for any other quarter in the
year. With the traditional term organization, many children are
unavoidably absent in the winter on account of sickness and
weather. Under the four-quarter arrangement, however, the allotted
vacation of these children could be so organized as to include this
absence and thus insure thirty-six weeks of schooling. “When people
are given a chance,” says Superintendent Wirt, “it is found that they
do not want to go to school at the same time any more than they all
want to travel at the same time.”
The all-year school would not increase the cost of maintenance.
For with the same number of pupils per teacher, the cost is the same
whether the pupils are all taught together for thirty-six weeks, on the
traditional plan, or whether only three quarters of them are taught at
a time throughout a school year of forty-eight weeks.
The economies which this multiple use of school facilities effects
are so large as to provide ample funds for all the special features of
the Gary plan of education. These savings are in construction, in
operation and maintenance, and in instruction. Savings in
construction alone are very large. Since, under the duplicate-school
plan, two complete schools may be accommodated in one building,
the number of school plants may be greatly reduced. In the light of
the Gary plan, therefore, those cities which are confronted with
problems of school congestion are in the paradoxical situation of
having, not too few buildings, but actually too many. Fewer and
better plants would accommodate their children under the Gary plan.
It must be remembered that the Gary schools at present have
accommodations for many more children than there are children to
use them, and this in spite of a phenomenal growth of population.
The erection of a number of Gary unit plants is less expensive than
the erection of a much larger number of ordinary school-buildings of
the common school type. For the cost of building construction does
not increase in proportion to the size of the building, and large sums
may be saved on the fewer sites required. The diminution in the
number of classrooms in the Gary school plant is a distinct source of
economy, owing to the fact that the classroom is uniformly the most
expensive portion of the school plant. The Gary experience seems to
show that the best and completest unit school plant is also the
cheapest. The plan of having the twelve grades under one roof
avoids the reduplication of expensive equipment in several centers.
And the self-sustaining industrial shops cut off an item of “vocational
training” expense which most cities find almost financially prohibitive.
As for the costs of operation and maintenance, it is obvious that
increasing the size of the school plant makes for economy. The cost
of janitor service, administrative charges, heating, lighting, etc., are
much reduced by consolidation. Nor, in order to effect these
economies, need the size of the school plant be made so large as to
make administration unwieldy. The largest Gary school plant,
operating with all these economies, accommodates only twenty-
seven hundred children, forty children to a teacher, while it is the
intention to reduce the average number of children per teacher to
thirty, and the building capacity to two thousand children.
Finally, the cost per pupil for instruction is decreased by the plan of
specializing and departmentalizing the work, and thus eliminating
overhead charges for supervisors. It should be pointed out again that
all these economies actually increase the educational efficiencies of
the school.
The figures show that the Gary school plan does not increase
public expenditures for educational purposes. The Jefferson School,
built before Superintendent Wirt came to Gary, and representing the
common type of modern school-building, was erected at a cost of
$90,000 to accommodate 360 pupils, with 40 pupils per teacher. This
is a per-capita construction cost of $250, a cost exactly equal to that
of a typical New Jersey High School recently erected at a cost of
$125,000, with a maximum capacity of 500 pupils. The capacity of
the Emerson School, constructed as an ideal Gary school plant, is
1800, with 30 pupils to a teacher. Its cost, with a large playground
and the wealth of facilities already described, was about $300,000.
The per-capita cost of construction was therefore $166. At its
maximum capacity, with 40 pupils to the teacher, the per-capita cost
of construction would be only $111, as against $250 for the Jefferson
School, with no facilities. Further tables of comparative costs will be
found in the Appendix.
The funds liberated by the application of these simple economical
principles to public-school finance are so large as to give Gary the
means to provide, as Superintendent Wirt says, “any kind of a school
desired.” Extraordinarily complete educational and recreational
facilities may be furnished for all the people all the year round.
Money is thus provided for an evening school for adults on an almost
unprecedented scale. The Gary evening schools, held in the four
largest school plants, four evenings a week throughout the regular
school year from 7 to 9.30 P.M., have an attendance over two thirds
that of the regular day schools. The cost of the evening school is
only thirteen per cent of the day-school cost.
The evening schools of Gary resemble a people’s university.
Practically every study authorized by state law is given, and the
bulletin of courses is like a university catalogue. All the shops,
laboratories, studios, and classrooms are thrown open, either to
repeat the day studies or to present more advanced work. All the
work, industrial and academic, is open on equal terms to men and
women. During 1914-15, 4300 students, representing all classes in
the community, are said to have been enrolled in the Gary evening
schools, with an average monthly enrollment of 3103. Over two
thousand of the nine thousand voters at the last city election were
said to be enrolled in the Gary evening schools. There are said to be
more men over twenty-one attending evening schools in Gary than
there are boys of all ages attending the day schools.
The Gary evening schools in the last year have achieved an even
closer articulation of the work of the day and evening schools. A
large number of short-unit courses were offered for busy men and
women who wished particular branches of certain studies, and who
could not remain in school to pursue their studies in the usual way. It
has also been arranged to connect into group units the studies that
bear upon a given industrial occupation, so that the school may
correlate directly with all the occupations of the community, and the
adult worker may come and secure the additional experimentation or
theory which will help him in his work.
In addition to this instruction offered in academic and industrial
work, to the evening pupils is given free use of the gymnasiums,
pools, playgrounds, etc. The playgrounds are artificially lighted so
that games may be played successfully at night. Playgrounds and
swimming-pools are open on Sundays also, and the auditoriums for
lectures, moving pictures, community forums, and the like. All
wholesome social gatherings and entertainments are welcomed any
evening of the week. The auditoriums are freely lent for political
meetings, conferences, meetings of neighborhood or other private
associations. The Gary school plant thus becomes in the fullest
sense a social or community center. The “wider use of the school
plant” here involves almost the widest possible use in the interests of
all classes of the population; for the lavish Gary school plants
contain equipments which serve the needs not only of children, but
of all classes of adults as well, from the well-to-do woman who
wishes to learn French to the sheet-metal worker in the mills.
By using the schools as a public service, the Gary educational
authorities are thus able to provide for all the people facilities at no
more expense than other communities are paying now for meager
opportunities which do not even meet the needs of the children,
while they leave the majority of adults entirely uninfluenced by the
schools. “The private exclusive use of public-school facilities has
meant and will continue to mean,” says Superintendent Wirt, “that all
of the people collectively can provide for only a part of their number.”
 The Gary school is evidently a genuine “public school” in a sense
more “public” than is generally known. In many communities the
public school is “still the old private school publicly supported.”
School boards often act as if they were trustees of private property.
They gravely discuss “wider use of the school plant” as if this were
some gracious extension of privilege instead of a public right. The
public in many communities scarcely feel yet that the schools are
their own. The Gary schools seem to have produced a different
spirit. They are public in the same broad sense that streets and
parks are public. They are used with the same freedom and lack of
reserve. In such a community and such a school education would
never be finished. Just as there is no break between common school
and high school in the Gary plan, so there need be none between
child and adult. The child would not “graduate,” “complete his or her
education,” but would tend to drift back constantly to the school to
get the help he or she needed in profession or occupation, or to keep
on enjoying the facilities which even the wealthy private home would
not be able or willing to afford. It is toward such a public educational
ideal that the Gary plan seems to work. Toward this all the
economies and ingenious schemes of organization are directed—
toward making the public schools veritable “schools of the public.”
 V

ORGANIZATION

The distinctive features of organization in the Gary school are the

separation of administrative from pedagogical supervision; the
extension of departmental teaching throughout the entire school; the
increased initiative and coöperation of the teaching force; the
flexibility and simplicity obtained by the “helper” or “observer”
system.
The school administration is vested in a single head, the
superintendent of schools, who is appointed by the board of
education of three members. In charge of each school-building is an
executive principal, whose duties are concerned with program-
making, with supervision of the pupil’s schedules, with the general
maintenance of order and discipline, and ordinary administrative
work. He has no supervision of the instruction.
For all the schools there are two general supervisors of instruction,
who oversee the teaching, work out the curricula in coöperation with
the teachers, conduct examinations for promotion, make promotions
or demotions after consultation with the teacher.
The industrial and manual-training shops are under the direction of
a director of industrial work, who is also practical head of the school-
building and repair department. The teacher-workmen in the shops