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Show ffoMf Can We Qbiam Public teteresf ? By Farrell J. Humphreys This is the fourth problem to be included in the agenda of the White House Conference on Education. Ed-ucation. It is noteworthy that the topic for today's discussion in on a continued public interest in education. edu-cation. There is no mention of being able to be interested only while one's children are in school. In looking for reasons which would ask for all the public to be interested in our schools, one's first thoughts naturally turn to patriotic reasons. We know that our form of government lives or dies based on the willingness of our rising generations to propigate our way of life. The rising generation genera-tion is a product of our schools and many of their decisions will be based upon the education and training they receive in our schools. President Eisenhower apparently felt that there needed to be an awakening of the American public i to one of their basic responsibilities responsibili-ties our schools, when he said, "It is the inalienable right of every person, from childhood on, to have access to knowledge . . . this right of the individual takes on a special meaning, for the education of all our citizens is imperative to the education and invigoration of America's free institutions." One of the major problems faced by manv teachers is the lack of interest in the purposes and values of education. Why do so many i of our youth resent school? Why i do so many of our youth dislike i a law that requires them to be in j school until they are eighteen? j What can be done to obtain a more favorable attitude toward our schools by both, parents and students? Who is responsible to keep the public informed as to what our schools are doing? Can you justify the publication and distribution of an annual report of the schools of the district to lay citizens by the local board of education in .order to promote better under-(Continued under-(Continued on Back Page) KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS . . . (Continued from Pase 1) standing and increase interest in order to promote interest in our schools? In our county, is there a constructive con-structive public attitude toward the school's? If so, how is it .expressed? .ex-pressed? If not, how can it be obtained? Some time ago someone made this statement, "Education is the only thing people seem to enjoy being short-changed on." There is enough truth in this statement that it hurts when children are questioned as to whether they want to get in and work at their studies. "There will be no assignment assign-ment for - tomorrow," is a statement state-ment that generally gains much approval for teachers from students. stu-dents. Who can best encourage our youth to want to get the most out of our schools? You can lead a child to knowledge, knowl-edge, but you can't make him think. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. (Unless you put a little salt in his oats!) The public needs to become the "salt" in education that flavors it in such a way that children will thirst after knowledge, and the knowledge needs to be seasoned sea-soned by public interest in what needs to be taught and how it can most economically be handled. |