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Show KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS .... The Horse, The Buggy and The Bisiionhco:: - . By Ray D. Warner While teaching at the BYU Elementary Laboratory School, I ran a little experiment which, even though started as a joke, had some results that were rather startling, and opened the eyes of some of us as to what was really happening to our children. A display was made and placed in one corner of the classroom. Within the display were several common objects one, a buttonhook; button-hook; two, a coal scuttle; three, a fire shovel; and four, a lid lifter used to lift the lid from a kitchen range. Over the exhibit were these words on a rather un-attractive colorless poster WHAT ARE THESE? i The first morning the articles were shown to the students and a discussion followed. Everyone, or 100 of the sixth grade class agreed that they did not know what the articles were, or what they were used for. Several of the teachers visited the exhibition, but did not divulge the identity of the mysterious what-nots. The word spread throughout the school and everyone was just as much in the dark as the sixth grade students. At lunch time one pupil brought the janitor to view the display, and not being forewarned, let the cat out of the bag, "Oh, I know what these things are have used them all my life until recently." It hasn't been many years since people used buttonhooks. Many are using fireshovels and coal scuttles today, but the important .thin; is, our children are making a change-a change-a change so rapidly that we educators ed-ucators wonder if we are keeping abreast with the change. Are our schools geared to the scientific advancement of society, or are we still swinging along in line with the horse, the buggy and the buttonhook? Our children are our greatest resource. Our future as a leading world power depends almost directly upon the proper training and utilization of that resource. Our schools have been given, and have accepted the responsibility (Continued on Back Page) KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS (Continued from page one) of developing that resource and the question that keeps cropping up is, Are our school programs for developing this resource being continually studied and improved? Whether children contribute to democracy as a way of life depends de-pends upon the nature and quality of their school experience. The ability that children have to work cooperatively together can be used to carry out the design of the antisocial gangs, or to solve the future problems that will be brought to the council tables of the world. Scientific insight and competency can be guided toward international brotherhood, or toward to-ward the destruction of the world. Here lies the greatest argument I know for the present type of school curriculm. Will our children grow to give freely of themselves for the good of their fellows, or will they use their special com-petencies com-petencies solely for personl ends? Will children have the power to think for themselves to take stands on issues in terms of the guiding principles that they have been taught, or will that power be extinguished to the point that an individual can only follow the dictates of his immediate environment. environ-ment. If the latter is so, then our nation as a world power is in grave danger. John Dewey said, "Education for an atomic age must make the individual in-dividual more intelligent, more alert, more discriminating, more critical and more aware of what is going on in the world. We must develop men and women who will refuse to take their thinking from an intellectual department store. Education should not be a retreat re-treat into the past on the one hand nor the mere furnishing of technical tools on the other. It should wake people up and teach them to think." Subject matter exists in the curriculm, cur-riculm, not as an end In itself, but a means by which we reach our overall objective. We learn to read not to master the written page, but to help us see the overall over-all picture. We learn to write not just to gain the technical skill, but to help us communicate. Subject Sub-ject matter must be related to non-school activities or the learning functioned only in the classroom seting, and the graduates are unable un-able to meet intelligently and deal with situations different than those considered in school. Every ' child is an individual, with different backgrounds, vary ing stages of development and each has interests and concerns that are important to him. The teaching of such individuals must take into consideration these interests and concerns. Children must have a part in choosing and planning the activities involved. They will Jearn when they have a hand in planning plan-ning and evaluating the activities. In the modern school, children are free to draw their own conclusions con-clusions in the sense that teacher interpretations and teacher opinions opin-ions are not forced upon them. Children are given opportunity to deal democratically with contra-versial contra-versial issues. As they grow older, children are encourager to seek evidence for themselves and to examine all sides of the question. Independence rather than conformity conform-ity is the primary objective. Even though the three Rs Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic are extremely important as curriculum cur-riculum materials for our schools, they are only experiences, used to bolster the overall activities of developing children into well rounded citizens who are an asset to our nation, and who replenish the greatest of all our. resources. |