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Show Machines have come to the _ classroom. Individual ones Harold Howe n, the U. S. Commis- sioner of Education, has been a teacher, principal, and superintendent at some of (far left) are used to personalize learning. Others, such as the overhead the finest public and private schools tn the East. For two years,prior to his ap- projectors (above and left), simplify instruction for pointment_as Commissioner in 1965, he served-as executive director of the Learn—ing Institute of North Carolina, which encourages serious educational research and innovation. teachers. Theformula(upper — right) may puzzle parents— but it’s readily understood by students (right) who use computers regularly. cial talents of teachers and permits individual aid for both “slow” and talented pupils. This idea offers a pattern for loosening up the organ- © ization of our schools to serve learning better. A far-reaching innovation, the nongraded school, deserves-greater exploration than it has had. This is simply a device for saying: let’s not move this pupil every year into a new grade; let him flow along through school at his own rate of learning. That is the kind of thinking to which educators should give more attention. selor, a diagnostician,.a motivator, and a critic and analyst of information—functions no machine can perform. Thus the machine will make the teacher more, rather thanless, important. How to Rate Your Schools Equally exciting is computerized instruction. We have gone through the first generation of teaching machines, and during this period many were bought by schools because they were shiny and the “in” thing to do. Now we are becoming more sophisticated about teaching machines, realizing that the apparatus in itself does not prove anything but that you must first have Tene, good : Parents inevitably ask me: “How can werate the schools in our town? How can we tell whether we're getting enough for our school dollars?” One useful element to look at is the per-pupil expenditure. Across the country,this ranges from less than $300 a year to more than $1,500. In all programs to feed into it. ming likelihood, if your community is spending much less than another community, it needs to provide In anycase, the computer presents the possimore facilities and higher teachers’ salaries. bility of storing a great deal. of information on Also, see if your educational system offers such magnetic tape which the student can call upon services as counseling, remedial instruction, and as he needs it. Depending on his responses, the school libraries. Determine whether the schools computer can determine what information bears meet the particular needs of the various groups on the problem at hand and provide facts which of children in the community. For instance, a build on knowledge the student already has. fortunate suburb may be doing a very good job I see a strong connection between computer—-ized-instructionand-the-nongraded.school- idea, —_.- thepercent.ofits.headed for. college while neglecting—by failing to provide The computer, and teaching through it, is a way special programs—the 20 percent whoare not. of individualizing the teaching process. And inCertainly ‘a school should not be judged on the dividualized instruction is needed throughout our basis of how many merit scholarship winners it educational system. produces or how many graduates get into Ivy Ideally each student should have his own perLeague colleges. An excellent school I know of. sonal “track.” The computer and other, newer in the Midwest does not send any students atall educational media offer this wonderful opporto Ivy League colleges, but it does as much as “tunity. They canbringthe best teachers, the most any school in the nation to turn out good citizens carefully planned curricula, and key books to in terms of their values and attitudes. each classroom and to each pupil. Basically, to improve their schools,parents They.canfreeateacherfromtheslavery of should see that first-rate persons are chosen for information-giving and make him more of a. coun- the school board. The most significant role of any board is to select the school superintendent and to back him up, doing everything it can to develop effective and forward-looking policy procedures within which he operates. Unfortunately school-boards—have -a-tendencyto become so interested in small administrative details that they invade the proper province of the administration, especially in picking teachers and principals. Some parents have found that they can help improve their schools by organizing or joining study groups. I have great faith in the demo- cratic process. When citizens are really well informed about their schools’ activities, they usu- | ally have constructive and useful recommendations to make. A parents’ “pressure group,” on the other hand, can be a self-appointed body which decides it has the answer to some problem—for example, | | ! how English should be taught. This kind of usur- pation of the professional’s role can become a very limiting factor in teaching. At home, I do not think parents should take as gospel everything their children tell them about teachers—norfor that matter should teachers believe everything they are told about par- ents. You are certainly not apt to find out, solely. _..{rom...your..own..child, whether..he's..receiving.a— “good education.” On the national scale, we have asserted in the past that all children should be educated. Now we say that all should be educated well. The fact that education is locally controlled gives communities the right to have schools which range the full spectrum of quality—or the Inek of it. I see plenty of evidence that many local communities, aided by state and federal funds, are improvingtheirschools.I hope such signs of “improvement have reached your community. Family Weekly, November 18, 1966 5 i * |