Newspapers / North Carolina Central University … / June 10, 1957, edition 1 / Page 2
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PAGE TWO THE SUMMER ECHO MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1957 Sutn"^(iEcho This is the summer edition of THE CAMPUS ECHO. It is the official student paper of the NCC Summer Students. PHONE 2-2171 EXT. 325 GREETINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR By DR. J. H. TAYLOR It is a pleasure to extend greetings to you — teachers and stu dents — who make up our Summer School community. You have come to an institution that is young, vigorous, and dynamic. Here you will find a harmonious blending of the past and the present. There are dedicated souls who are ardent devotees of traditions that are tried and true. There are pioneer spirits who “look down the dim vistas of time” and attempt to describe conditions^ in the world of tomorrow. Here you will find a genuine interest in the development of the human spirit, and an honest belief in the essential goodness of men. North Carolina College is a student-centered institution. It was founded forty-seven years ago to meet a peculiar and pressing need. It has never deviated from the course exemplified by the motto: “I serve.” The program of North Carolina College’s Sum mer School reflects the spirit of the motto. A large number of courses — taught by a highly trained and experienced faculty — have been organized to meet the needs of undergraduates, graduates, teachers, principals, supervisors, and persons who are primarily interested in their own personal develop ment. For those who do not desire a traditional program there are a number of workshops extending from two to six weeks. The Summer School has planned a variety of extra-class activi ties. Each member of the community is urged to participate in these activities. There will be games and socials, and swimming. Committees of teachers and students will be formed to plan and to advise. There will be opportunities for singing with the chorus, and for acting with the Thespians. Every person who has a talent will be given an opportunity to exploit that talent. The Director’s office is in Room 103 Classroom Building, and ■will be open Monday through Friday from eight in the morning to :^i¥-‘tiHrty in the afternoon. A cordial invitation is extended to both faculty and students to visit the office at their convenience. Audio-Visual Materials: As We Perceive Barksdale Message From The Graduate Dean I wish to extend a cordial welcome to the students, teachers, and friends who have come to join the ranks of North Carolina College’s summer school student body. I trust that your period of summer study will prove both challenging and rewarding. Our education systems and the educators who work in those systems today face an extended period of tension and eruptive change. As all of us know, the Supreme Court of the United States has, through its historic decision of May 17, 1954, heralded a new day in education, and it behooves ever^ classroom teach er in the Southland to prepare himself morally and intellectually for effective participation in a sustained “cold war” between the proponents of the old and the adherents of the new. The Negro teacher must not be found unequal to the tasks which will confront him. His great need will be to prepare himself for successful competition within the ranks of his profession. This means hard work and unremitting effort to master the professional tech niques and subject matter necessary for any intellectual discipline. Every summer school student has an open invitation to visit the Graduate* Office any time during the announced office hours (10:30 - 12:30 a. m. and 3 - 4 p. m. daily.) All students are urged, also, to study the calendar of events on page 2 of the Summer School Bulletin. If you are working for a degree, your academic timetable becomes very important. Important notices bearing on Graduate School policy or procedure will be posted on the bulletin board outside the Registrar’s office in the Administration Building. I trust that every student will have an enjoyable and profitable summer. RICHARD K. BARKSDALE Assistant to the Graduate Dean ATTENTION ALL MOTHERS! SEND YOUR DAUGHTERS (AGES 6 TO 12) TO BEAUTIFUL AND SPACIOUS CAMP MASS-MO-KAN (June 22 — July 20) ROUTE 1, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA On full month of swimming, hikes, nature trips, crafts, dancing, informal dramatics, badminton, volley ball, basketball, softball, and other activities. ' Registration $2.50 — $20.00 Per Week — $75.00 Four Weeks] Contact: MRS. E. A. YOUNG, North Carolina College Phone 9-2904 Most any teacher can cite ex amples of misconceptions, half- truths, and the meaningless use of words which frequently oc cur in classroom recitations or on examination papers passed in by his students. Some of the classic examples which teachers like to recite range from tlie college student to the child in the elementary school. A college student, for example, once wrote on an examination paper that pathology was the science of road building. A high school girl who had just read from a passage in her history text that Henry VIII pressed his suit against Anne Boleyn wrote on an examination that “Anne Boleyn was ironed on.” A ge ography student thought that the equater was an imaginary lion (mind you lion, not line) running to and f fro around tha I middle of the earth. Edgar Dale often re cites the case in which a young- 'ster who read in Scott’s. Lady of The Lake, “The stag at J. E. Parker gyg drunk his fill” thought that a stag was “when you haven’t got a girl.” A college teacher of Audio- Visual education recited this example to his class of seniors, and discovered in the telling that only one of his sophisticat ed seniors knew what a stag was, and this one had seen the picture of a stag on an Old Stagg whiskey bottle. The verbalism—the use of words the meaning of which are not understood “is a disease”, says Edgar Dale, “usually caught in school.” All too often teaching and learning is little more than a careless exchange of verbal counterfeiting. Teach ers generally feel that fate has dealt them a terrific'blow when they find in their classroorns students with such deficient perceptual backgrounds, but “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. But in ourselves,j that we are underlings.” Teachers generallj attempt to blame the results of their teach ing on this deficiea perceptual background of ther students, but they proceed ti build onto this background Sty scrapers of additional verlal counter feits. They fail t( provide a wide and varied ringe of per ceptual experiences from which these students jiay develop valid concepts frbii which fu ture learning caj justifiably proceed. In many’nstances, this is due to a lack B understand ing of the way cojcepts are de veloped, of the tey by which people learn. f It is the purpj«3 of this dis cussion to review some of the basic notions aboTt the role of perception in corept building and to cite a few|^ lustrations of Audio-Visual rrteerials which have been develoed to provide perceptual expeiences from which concepts my be develop ed. The Role of i'erception Howard L. Kinsley (The Na ture and Condit.ns of Learn ing, Prentice-Hal p. 273), cites i a case record of blind person whose eye sight as restored at the age of eighttn by surgical By James E. Parker operation. The doctor took him to a window and asked him if he saw the hedge across the street. He replied, “No, sir,” for he had no idea which among the many strange forms was the hedge. He had to learn what a hedge looked like. Although this man had heard the word “hedge” many times in the eighteen years of his blindness, he had attained no true under standing of the word. Complete understanding depended upon perceived experiences, the most important of which was visual The eye, the ear, the nerve end ings wMch respond to heat and cold, to pressure, to odors and tastes are the means through which almost all learning is ac complished. They are the means of perception. We can perceive in but three ways: by direct sensory contact; by seeing a pic ture, a model, or other repre sentation; and by verbal experi ence, i.e., by being told about or reading about an object or event. But perception is an im portant dimension of the learn ing process. Perceptions are thought to be the results of past experiences and of present, con cerns.' There is research evidence to show that perceptions are learn ed. Every child learns in due course of time that certain ob jects are dogs. He has one. It is called Rover, or Spot, or Fido. The ordinary learning process involves a series of experiences during which certain sensory responses are developed. During the same series of experiences the child learns to perceive and to deal with certain external events as dogs. He does not first perceive dogs, but perceptions grow out of his experiencing dogs. The important generali zation in this regard for the teacher is that “there must be a continuity of perceptional ex periences over time, during which there is constant inter play of sensory experience with the full range of other factors or “levels” of experience.” (Ken neth Norberg, “Perception Re search and Audio-Visual Educa tion,” Audio-Visual Communica tions Review, Vol. 1, 1953, p. 26). Perceptions are learned. They increase in accuracy with training. They are, in brief, habit reactions to familiar “cues” which have occurred and re-occurred in similar situations. Perceptions Lead to Concepts Edgar Dale has pointed out that education involves making suitable classification of our ex periences — that is, the building of concepts. As perceptions be come clearly understood, their meanings are classified into lar ger and more meaningful hier archies, or generalizations, which are termed concepts. Once the child learns to perceive dogs, and learns that Rover is like Spot and Fido, and finally that things that look like them and act like them are called dogs he has learn ed to classify or generalize his experiences with dogs, and when he can apply these generali zations to new situations he has developed the concept dog. Con cept building is a process in volving three stages: (1) sensory experiencing from which we learn to perceive, (2) classifying or generalizing from our experi ences, and- (3) applying our gen eralizations to new situations. A break in any one of these links may lead to misconceptions. There are at least two grave dangers which any teacher faces in the process of concept build ing. The first of these is that teachers can usher youngsters in to learning situations before they have had sufficient perceptual experiences. There is, for ex ample, research which shows that much of the difficulty that children have with number con cepts is due to the fact that they are ushered into higher quanti tative concepts before they have had sufficient perceptual num ber understanding. Often teach ers fail to see that extended drill does not lead to the development of number concepts. There must be a variety of concrete experi ences which are gradually built into generalizations or concepts. The second danger is that teach ers can keep youngsters on the perceptual basis too long. Teach ers must realize that the ultimate goal is to lead to functional use of concepts, to lead youngsters to a point at which they can make valid generalizations and apply these generalizations to new situations. Teaching should in volve repetitive presentations which show the object, thing, or event against as many back grounds as possible, because its later occurrence may be under novel circumstances. Audio-Visual Materials One of the early attempts to develop motion pictures which were aimed specifically at dev eloping concepts was the motion picture What Is Four? This film builds up the concept of “four” by showing its occurrence in many concrete situations in life, as in the wheels of a wagon and feet of a horse, and then pro ceeds to an abstract presentation of four based on the visual treat ment of these situations. Four is treated in a great variety of situa tions to help the child appreciate the “four-ness” of the number. It shows that four results from com binations of three and one, one and three, and two and two. Similarly, it shows that four re sults when one is take from five or two from six. These and many other vivid illustrations are used to help the child develop the con cept “four.” EBF’s film Democracy is an other example of a motion pic- (Continued on Page 8) Summer Special For Summer School Students Chicken Salad — Tomato Salad — Tossed Salad — Salmon Salad — 50c each. BILTMORE HOTEL GRILL 332V2 E. Pettigrew St. Phone 5-2071
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