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Show TEACHEING THE FUNDAMENTALS Delivered by Nancy Hil'man in Milford High School Speech Class ". . . Every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath' increased them to the number i of 50 householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children chil-dren as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the Parents Par-ents or Masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general gener-al . . ." This law the Massachusetts School Law of 1647 founded the first system of public education edu-cation in the American colonies. Now every state of the United States has a compulsory education educa-tion law and non-sectarian, state controlled schools, open free and equally to all. This school system has been expanded in recent years to include in-clude free, public tax-supported adult education which is springing spring-ing up in various school districts. dis-tricts. This means that more than ever before,, schools of today are the meeting, place of a,"l Amer- ican children; both those of relatively rel-atively good mental ability and the less able. For this reason not . all children chil-dren will achieve the same degree de-gree of skill, with the same in-signt, in-signt, nor will they do the same quantity or quality of work. The difference between the best student and the poorest poor-est will be greater than ever. The real object of education is to give children resources that will endure as long as life endures; habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy; occupations occupa-tions that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and death less terrible. ter-rible. But schools are teaching children chil-dren to read, to write, to spell to figure, although they are not 1 using the traditional methods, j Education has made improvements improve-ments in methods of working , just as other professions have made improvements in their I I skills and techniques. You cannot can-not do today's job with yesterday's yester-day's tools and still be in business busi-ness tomorrow. A teacher looks first at the child and his needs and then uses the subject matter and the skills that best meet those needs. That fact probably represents the crux of the argument, in which schools seem to be on one side of the fence and a portion of the public on the opposite j side. j The generation which did not fight the war is trying to understand under-stand what happened, why it happened, and what can be done to straighten out the world. Help it to find out thru better, stronger, freer schools which bring to it the distilled truth 1 wrested from the experience of all recorded time, which encourage en-courage the search for truth, and which foster the undeveloped undevel-oped talents which are America's Amer-ica's greatest source of wealth. Teachers enjoy or ought to enjoy freedom from social and political .pressures; freedom to seek the eternal truths and to present these truths in a way that will stimulate young minds to look for the truth and be able to recognize it when they find it Teachers should be able to live their private lives as any other self - respecting citizen lives his neither playing "Mrs. Grundy" to the community nor being dictated to by the social arbiters of the community, whoever who-ever they may be. ? Tests measure children's pencil pen-cil and paper ability, but the real proof of skill is found in the. actual situations in which children use reading, writing, spelling, and, arithmetic. That man is best : educated who is most useful. There are persons who are always talking about preparing for life. The best -way to prepare for life is to begin to live. A school should not be a preparation; a school should be life. School and home must work together in determining de-termining where and how to observe ob-serve children's abilities in the skills. Schools can make a beginning be-ginning but homes must follow up. Since children vary widely in abilities,, teachers will need to help parents decide which skills to check. From the words of the executive execu-tive secretary of California As- sociation of School Administrators, Administrat-ors, John A. Sexon, I quote: "Let's pray,-for the knowledge we need to go ahead in education educa-tion to where we get our results re-sults in better people, not in just better adding machines. Let's acquire the mastery of those fundamentals of human association respect for others, fair dealing, and cooperation as well as the traditional Three "Rs"." |