| OCR Text |
Show KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS .... Every Child Deserves Facts And Faith . . . By Supt. Rowan C. Stutz Academic freedom begins in the home with parents, who are the child's first teachers. If you are a parent, what are your feelings when someone tries to impose his ideas on you as to how to bring up your child? Maybe it is something some-thing like this: Here now don't let your child play in the sandbox; it's unsanitary." Whether that somebody is Aunt Min, or grandfather, or a government govern-ment inspector, such an approach gets on your nerves. You expect to teach your child many things so that he may be a happy, use ful citizen. Parents need freedom to teach. The idea of academic freedom applies to many fields of activity If you should go to a physician because of a pain, you would expect him to be unhampered in his diagnosis. He would want your confidence; he would want to study the facts and advise you in the light of his experience. Everyone needs a reasonable amount of freedom to do his best work. Each occupation thrives when individual workers have "elbow room" to make better use of their skill and resources. In teaching, this freedom is called "academic freedom in the classroom." It implies also to freedom free-dom in one's life in the community commun-ity within the bounds of good taste and commonsense. A happy teacher is likely to be an effective teacher. You and all citizens can make sure that your child's teacher teach-er has freedom in his teaching. Can you be sure your child is being taught by a safe teacher? Well, what is a safe teacher? For that matteT, what is a safe parent? par-ent? In most human relationships we cannot have the same assur-(Continued assur-(Continued on Back Page) KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS (Continued From Page 1) ance as we have with the sun. Years of experience have taught us that the sun will rise and set every day. Without faith most of this business of living together would grind to a halt. If you get a glass of water from the faucet, you assume that authorities have seen to it that the ' water is pure. So you drink the water with confidence. In a similar way we have faith in the teachers of our children. We believe that education is in safe hands. We expect ' teachers to be prepared for their work, to be efficient, and to be trustworthy. And most of them are. . You need not rely only upon faith when it comes to the teachers teach-ers in' your community. You will probably find: 1. He (and we also mean she) is "just folks" on the basis of family, school, and hometown background". 2. He completed several years of college prepartions, a program of cultural subjects, and specialized special-ized preparation for teaching. 3. He belongs to professional education associations which through codes of ethics and programs pro-grams help him to be a better teacher. Youit faith in teachers can rest upon facts. We can hold fast to the ideal that "man has a right ' to knowledge know-ledge and the free use thereof." It is this country's traditional road to good citizenship. Schools in the United States are distinctly local agencies. They reflect what the people of the community want for all children. Parents and all other citizens should insist: 1. That school authorities employ em-ploy only teachers of high character char-acter and sound professional preparation. 2. That classroom instruction gives children experiences in examining ex-amining valid facts. 3. That teachers, when prepared and ethically minded, shall not be hampered in the discharge of their professional duties. As responsible citizens we should seek: 1. To guard the schools against the intrusion of restricted truth and the efforts of self-appointed critics to control what children think and learn. 2. To keep informed about the schools by personal observation of school activities, by conferences with teachers, and by participation in parent-teacher associations and other school-related groups. |
