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Show You and Your Child: Success in School by JIM CAMPBELL '. : Utah Education Association President ...... ... j - I Will Hayes is one educator who teaches the "four R's." You know the first three. The fourth "R" is responsibility, according to Mr. Hayes, a teacher in Santa Barbara, Calif. Every year, he invites an employee of the transit company there to explain the bus system. The next day he sends the sixth graders out in groups of four or five to ride the bus and take notes about what they see. Hayes says administrators don't like that exercise. They say he can't do it because the kids are alone no adults, no control. Of course not, he responds. The whole purpose is to teach responsibility. Whether or not you agree with Hayes, the man knows a lot about young people. He's been teaching since 1936, and at 72 he looks like a TV star. He giving retirement no thought. He recalled a father who came in to talk about his son's problems in math a stressed-out student. Hayes told the father that the important thing wasn't math. The teacher told him to work on making the boy secure "and let me worry about the math." In a recently-published article Hayes says his students discover dis-cover things for themselves. They do a lot of work with computers compu-ters and calculators, but they also study number facts. He warns students that the batteries may go dead. Hayes tells parents his students should have no TV Monday through Thursday nights. He requires parents to meet with him on the opening night of school. He has his students write a poem every week. "I touch every child every day pat a head, tweak an ear," he said. "I also tell my students how good they are and that I love them. I have no qualms about using the word 'love,' and I tell parents that." |