Newspapers / Salem College Student Newspaper / Feb. 13, 1953, edition 1 / Page 2
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Pb' MeJUoc/uiif . We can no longer afford to sit complacently and allow the public schools to remain as they are. Before long each of us will take our places as leaders of the community in which we live. Some of us will teach the school children, and all of us will be affected directly or indirectly by the type of education being given today. First, we should consider what the aim of education really is. Tf the purpose is simply to entertain, then the public schools are doing a fairly adequate job by furnishing sand boxes, bulletin boards and sugar-coated games presumably aimed at enlightening children. If on the other hand, we decide ‘that the aim of education is to teach, then we should look at our present system of education and begin constructively criticizing and changing it"so that it can achieve its purpose. Today the schools base work on quantity rather than quality. We hear educators brag about the •number of school children there are rather than the type of education they are receiving.^ We hear teachers brag about the number of books their students read rather than the quality of the books being read. Comic books and love magazines still con stitute a large part of our contemporary literature. Each year the high school standards are lowered and the cheating methods of students are improved. Teachers see the lack of honor in the students but they are either indifferent to it or they do not know how to cope with the problem. When determining the curriculum to be of fered students, teachers and educators should first decide what constitutes a good education and theii proceed from there. Instead, the planners determine what the students want to know or what they are willing to be sub jected to and then offer an inferior program of entertainment rather than education. Perhaps the most difficult problem that stu dents and educators alike face is indifference in the American people. People who really care or feel deeply about things are not in different to what is happening. Only those people who are interested enough to look at educational aims in the public schools are willing to improve the existing conditions. I don’t believe anyone can be blind enough to think that schools today are perfect and that they are adequately educating millions of school children. What is the answer to the problem? First, teachers and educators should re-evaluate the principles of good education and what the educational goals should be. Truth should be basic and not relative as John Dewey advo cated. Second, tlie curriculum should be based on 'this good education and lead toward its goals. Finally, the teachers should work toward the goals and. toward providing a good education to pupils. Teachers should not be influenced by social pressure. Teachers should stop try ing to appease students and begin teaching again on the proper level to i^romote thinking, muler.standing and factual knowledge. Students 'must, be shown that cheating is moralh' wrong—just like stealing or lying— and that popularity and intellectual ability are not antitheses. Too often today school .students brag about not studying; football heroes, usually lacking mental abilit3% are the school leaders, and the honor students of the scliools are made fun of. Schools have become social institutions rather than instruments of public instruction. The average student is the measure of all things. Mediocrity reigns. P. C. _H £ SALEMITE February 13. Views On Salem Editor’s Note; One of the purposes of this issue of the Salemite is to express varying views on education, both in public schools and in college. By exposing Salem students to the differing opinions, the editor hopes that they will examine their own views and even defend them against op posing ones. Below are, two papers on col lege education written for Miss. Byrd’s comp class : By R. R. Chambers Most men of my age are more concerned with the prospects of becoming a grandfather than \vith the possibility of earning a college degree. Why do I want a degree? Frankly, I had no idea when I returned to college for a second try after a twenty year interim be tween my first and second years of college, I was midway through my second year at Salem before I seriously set about determining just what I wanted to accomplish. My conscience then made it im perative that I appraise the value of a college degree and justify the time and effort necessary to earn it. Being a business man and supposedly practical, I arranged to take a two day aptitude test at the veterans’ administration. The tests clearly indicated the direction which my efforts should follow. I settled upon the specific goal of becoming a hospital administrator. This, I felt, justified my going to college from a practical viewpoint. My increased earning capacity, if I succeed in obtaining the coveted degree, should amply repay my family for my. impositions upon them to gain my degree. In the meantime,, something has occurred to me that I had not ex pected. Dur common heritage has come to mean much more to me. History has come alive; it wasn’t like that before. I have come to feel that. The men who laid the foundations of our national herit age were real human beings just as we are. They had the same day to day problems of living just as we have. They are no longer just names in books. Poems, stories, plays that I had read and sup posedly learned before took on a new meaning. I have also learned that life is much more satisfying if one doesn’t restrict his time and activities to the pursuit of more and more money. Oh I like money as well as anyone, but a constant (Continued On Page Four) By Hadwig Stoiwitzer There could hardlj' be a greater difference between two schools than between Salem College and the Leopold-Franzens Universitat in Innsbruck, where I studied last year. I was completely bewildered when 1 arrived at Salem. A bunch of students editing a school news paper and 18-year old freshmen who were taught English grammar. I had never seen anything like it. Now I think that Salem College is a good school. The Leopold Franzens-Universitat in my home towm is not too bad either. Yet they h.ardly have one common trait. A good schqpl, in my mind, is a school which serves well its pur pose and teaches its pupils what they need later on in life. Salem College and the university in my home town accordingly are as dif ferent as the aims of the people wdio come to attend them. At the university in Innsbruck, I, seventeen years old, was attend ing lectures with bald men who had wedding rings on their fingers —moss-covered heads, as we used to call them, and with old grey haired ladies. Who would dream of teaching them grammar or giv ing them a seminar about adjust ment to university life ? Of course I did not get any in troductory courses to the univer sity either. I did not even hear an introductory speech. We had no welcome prepared for us when we entered the university, but I remember having had a terrible time getting registered. To Europeans a university is strictly a place for learning. Most of the students know why they are coming, whether it is to get a degree and have better chances in life or whether to abtain more knowledge and education. They also know their responsibility to learn all the material covered. No cut system is necessary. They know what they w'ant to learn and that they want to learn it. And if they do not, they will fail—it is their own affair. Salem College on the other hand, is a college for girls only and all of them are very young to boot, from seventeen or eighteen years to twenty-one. The question of earning a living through the know ledge they acquire is not so urgent. They need not specialize in one particular field of knowledge and concentrate their studies upon this subject only. Most of them are going to be married anyway and will not have to take a job and if (Continued On Page Four) I Am For Public Education . . . The next three Salemites will be edited junior.s who arei, in line for editorship of the paper next j-ear. Jean Calhoun will be in ehargre of the paper next week, Connie Mur ray on Feb. 27 and Alison Britt on March 6. Each girl will be given a chance to displaj^ her abilities in newspaper work so that the staff will have a definite basis for their vote in the election in March. The two associate editors, Anne Lowe and Pegg.v Chears, were editors last week and today. By Jean DeHart I am a teacher in the American public school system. What’s more, I’m proud of it. In our country we have schools, facilities, students, and teachers of number and quality unsurpassed in the world. Free dom of speech and of the press are great gifts to the American people, but I can’t understand a country that prefers criticism to praise. Caustic articles on our schools can be read in any of the magazines or newspapers. Radio programs discuss the so-called “problems” in our educational sys tem. We are attacked from all I sides and on all issues—from segre- ■gation to certification to janitorial I service. Frankly, I believe we owe a deep vote of appreciation to our schools, I would like to show you why. I 'agree with Mr. Henry Hill, president of Peabody College, when he says, “Let’s give a third cheer, one for public education and its unique contribution to a classless society and to a freedom and tolerance largely unknown among class educational systems, and for the educational options offered the American people. I am for public education.” I am proud to be a teacher! By Connie Murray Dear Diarjb Today is Friday the 13th, but that doesu’i bother me ’cause tomorrow is Valentine’s Day! I just know Elmo is going to send m, something. I had a premonition today % I had a package in the. Post Office, so I dashed across the street after my butterfly, catching course. Sure enough, there was i notice of a package. When the postman handed it to me, my hands shook so, I eoull hardly open the package. Was it a lowly red heart-shaped box or a gift? It was tot large to be jewelry. Dear Elmo—he is si thoughtful. Then what to my wondering eya should appear but two bottles of Vitamin-C pills, two rolls of Hums, and a bottle of Padj. col. “Oh, death, where is thy sting!” 1 found myself in the throes of depressioi Then I remembered our chapel speaker: oa must dream, dream, and keep dreaming. But life is not a series of games—it is i serious business. Lately I have been doii; a lot of serious thinking, and in the last fet weeks I have realized my destiny; I Avas meail to be a Avriter. And in order to further maul fest my literary abilities, I have decided It write my own Valentine verses this year, And this could easily turn into a lifetime ji 1 can see it now: my name on the door, I words “literary editor” underneath, and i the corner, “Privat^p.” I feel that I was ineaBl to write great things. I guess Milton felt' same waj- when he wrote “Paradise Lost.” But back to my Valentines. Let’s see- should send one to Elmo first. If I were a vine And jmu were a stump. I’d cling to jmn ’cause You’re my sugar-lump. Ma.vbe that’s too sentimental. Maybe Eta would like this better. I like your hair, I like jmur face, 1 like 3mur body, too; I like you sober, I like you tight, I like 3'on soddy, too. I guess I’ll send both of them to him. )iow I must send one to Jacques. (He stooi me up three times last month.) The U. S. is blue ’Cause Russia is red. How do 1 want you? With a hole in your head! And mj^ favorite professor — the one re sponsible for my abundant supply of thre cuts. — I better make this good, just to sho'i him how talented I am and how he has mis judged me. ■— If you’ll forget my C’s and D’s, To 3'on I’ll come upon my. knees. If jmu’ll give me some B’s and A’s, I’ll love you all my live-long daj^s. Oh, I almost forgot — the sweetheart Salem. Dr. Crramlej^ Is ever3'bod3’’s favoriti —it would never do to let this chance go R Because jmu are so verj^ fine. We want for our Valentine. We like the way you talk to us; We like the wa^^ j-ou never fuss. AVe like to see j-ou on the square; For us you’ve always time to spare. We like to see .von in Main Hall; AVe like to see you play baseball. A^oii understand, us all so well. The thanks we feel we cannot tell. And so to you we make this plea. Dr. Gramley, will you our Valentine bet tirijc Salemite OFFICES Lower floor Main Hall Downtown Office 304-306 South Main Street Subscription Price $3.00 a year Published every Friday of the College year by the Student Body of Salem College Printed by the Sun Printing Company Editor-in-Chief Eleiinor Associate Editors Anne Lowe. Peggy Ch‘>" Managing Editor jean CaIho“"
Salem College Student Newspaper
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Feb. 13, 1953, edition 1
2
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