anaheim-gazette 1964-01-23

ANAHEIM GAZETTE Opinions Virgil Pinkley, Editor & Publisher 4—The Anaheim Gazette Thursday, January 23, 1964 ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA Do Your Homework Please, Dr. Heuler A school board member appears to have failed to do his homework. At the last meeting of the Anaheim Union High School board of trustees, member Kenneth Heuler, M.D., denounced the district's new method of teaching modern foreign language, saying the youngsters weren't getting adequate preparation for the traditional instruction in these languages at the universities. While this would have been a serious allegation if true, preparation for the state university, U.S.C. and Stanford certainly should not be considered the sole or even the prime goal of high school language instruction. Fewer than half our college-bound graduates are heading for any of these institutions and, as this paper pointed out last week, the requirements of local institutions of higher education are suddenly upset last While this would have been a serious allegation if true, preparation for the state university, U.S.C. and Stanford certainly should not be considered the sole or even the prime goal of high school language instruction. Fewer than half our college-bound graduates are heading for any of these institutions and, as this paper pointed out last week, the requirements of local institutions of higher learning vary widely. But, and here Dr. Heuler's remarks betray his failure to check the current situation, even the monolithic structure of the state university's longstanding and totally unrealistic language requirement is shaking. Soon the entering student will be able to satisfy their requirements by an entrance examination for which audio-lingual instruction will be the best preparation. Even today, the university's own courses are in their own version of the audio-lingual method. The university is using its own system. This may or may not indicate that none of the commercially-available systems are adequate. Also, it should be noted that seniors graduating in Anaheim this year are still learning language under the old system. Surely, a full-scale review should wait until a complete class is ready to graduate after three years with the new system and can be compared with such classes as are graduating this year. Dr. Heuler would not reveal the reason he was so suddenly upset last week with language instruction. For some reason, he felt that it was not necessary or not wise to warn the administration of his "bombshell." It is no secret that there was and still is resistance in the various school language departments to the new system. Again, this in itself should not be conclusive evidence against the new system. Undoubtedly some traditionalist in the world's first army bitterly objected to the switch from bronze to iron swords. And maybe, for a while, there were some better bronze swords. But then, as now, the community with its eyes on the future could not let itself be swayed by die-hards, however sweetly familiar their song. READING MATTER By Ralph Erwin Pearlman QUESTION: Ever since he was in second grade, our son, now 13, has had a reading problem. We were told not to confuse him, that he would outgrow it. But he hasn't. What can we do? — Mrs. C.L.B. COMMENT: Unfortunately, reading handicaps are not outgrown. Actually, with the passing of time they become worse if left unchecked. A poor reader must literally learn his way out of his difficulty. He needs constant, expert guidance, patient understanding, encouragement. The earlier a child's reading problems are discovered and taken care of, the easier they are to solve. This 13-year-old can learn to read better, can become a successful reader. A competent reading clinic will conduct diagnostic testing to determine what's wrong and undertake a program of reading skills improvement which can help overcome his difficulty. QUESTION: Is a child's inability to read due to low intelligence? Mrs. A.W.M. COMMENT: In the majority of the children we have seen, this has not been found to be true. A child may have a low IQ and be a slow learner, but a patient teacher generally can get through to him, encouraging the student to reach his maximum capacity. We know of unusual reading development by many students who have low IQs. Almos any human being can learn to read. You've seen preschool children play at reading as they mimic their parents, older brothers and sisters. Many are anxious to learn reading long before they enter school. All knowledge depends on the ability to read. Few human beings, whose thinking processes have begun, fail to understand this. The Pearlmans invite your questions about reading problems. Send them to READING MATTERS, 429 So. Western Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90005. For personal reply, please enclose self-addressed, stamped envelope. grown. Actually, with the passing of time they become worse if left unchecked. A poor reader must literally learn his way out of his difficulty. He needs constant, expert guidance, patient understanding, encouragement. The earlier a child's reading problems are discovered and taken care of, the easier they are to QUESTION: Is a child's inability to read due to low intelligence? Mrs. A.W.M. COMMENT: In the majority of the children we have seen, this has not been found to be true. A child may have a low IQ and be a slow learner, but a patient teacher generally can get through to him, encouraging the student to reach his maximum capacity. We know of unusual reading ability to read. Few human beings, whose thinking processes have begun, fail to understand this. The Pearlmans invite your questions about reading problems. Send them to READING MATTERS, 429 So. Western Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90005. For personal reply, please enclose self-addressed, stamped envelope. SCIENCE TOPICS A computer has shown that Saint Paul could have written no more than five of the 14 epistles attributed to him, claims the Rev. Angus Q. Morton of the Church of Scotland. He used the computer to test the original Greek of the epistles by sentence length, word pattern and occurrence of common words of Greek prose to establish authorship. His tests show that Paul wrote only Romans, first and second Corinthians, Galatians and Philemon. The remaining nine came "from at least five other hands," he maintains. Campanology, the science of bells, may be offered as a course at the University of North Dakota, says President George W. Starcher. The school has a 305-bell carillon, one of the six largest in the U.S. Its bells are not of the traditional cast bronze but tiny ones weighing only a FEW ounces. Their ringing is amplified electronically. The fidget gidget is a spring device which is pressed between thumb and forefinger. This, says the Boston firm marketing it, relieves nervous tension. The manx cat, with a tail so short it is often thought of as tailless, faces extinction because it is interbreeding with ordinary cats imported to the Isle of Man from England. Now kittens with tails are often seen. The island government has established an experimental cat farm to try to restore the true breed. The Caribbean Sea, famous for resorts, is growing industrially. To meet the demand for industrial gases, a company, Antilles Industrial Gases, N.V., has been established on the island of Aruba, 18 miles off the Venezuelan coast. The company, a joint venture of NCG International C.A. and the Aruba Gas Supply Company, supplies oxygen, nitrogen and acetylene to island industries which include one of the largest oil refineries in the world. 'Pure' scientific research gets only between 5 and 10 per cent of the $15 billion spent annually by the federal government for science, according to a report from Washington. The rest pays for such things as engineering development, testing and evaluation, which many scientists don't consider science at all. ANAHEIM GAZETTE TELEPHONE: PR 2-1800 Published Thursday of each week at 421 East Cerritos Ave. Anaheim, California Legal Adjudication No. A 22441 VIRGIL PINKLEY, Editor and Publisher Entered as second class mail matter under the act of March 3, 1879. All rights herein are reserved. SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 per year, payable in advance. CONVENIENT SCREEN WEALTHY PANAMANIAN RULING CLASS 2% OF POPULATION IF IT WEREN'T FOR HIM YOU'D ALL BE RICH! DAMYANKEE IMPERIALISTS POVERTY IN THE OTHER 98% DE FACTO SEGREGATION Social Inheritance DE FACTO SEGREGATION 'Social Inheritance' Crucial By EDUCATION NEWS SERVICE (Editor's Note: This is the fifth in a series of articles on one of the toughest issues facing California today and in the years ahead: defacto segregation in the public schools and the numerous difficult problems involved in bringing it to an end.) "A man is a prisoner within his own social inheritance," Lancelot Hogben remarked in his book, "Mathematics for the Million." This generalization contains much food for thought in connection with desegregation of California schools, in the opinion of Dr. Dan Dawson, executive secretary of the California Elementary School Administrators Association (CESAA). Specifically, he feels that hope for genuine racial integration in the schools depends in large part on the ability of the Negro minority to burst its cultural bonds — bonds which have been forged mainly of deprivation of one sort or another over the centuries. Educators have researched at length the question of relative academic ability between middle-class white and lower-class minority students and have concluded that a relationship exists between socio-economic status (SES) and pupil achievement as measured by standardized tests. White students from city and rural slums show the same loss in achievement as minority children in the same environment. However, according to Dawson, it is accepted that the lower average achievement of the economically lower-class minority youngsters does not indicate lack of innate ability, but rather reflects the effect of cultural deprivation. This has led to protests on the part of minority leaders against applying the same I.Q. tests to both groups on the basis that they are not "culture-free." This is admitted by educators, but they also point out that the minority student is preparing to compete in the same culture as the middle-class white student and that the tests are designed to measure competitive ability in a specific cultural framework. Dawson concludes: "These test differences indicate that those with low scores would not be able to compete even if educated in integrated schools. Their hope lies in changing either their own culture or ours." Dr. Harry Rivlin, dean of teacher education at City University of New York, identified exactly the same problem but reaches some different conclusions. Addressing the conference on "Education of the Disadvantaged American," which was sponsored by the California Teachers Association (CTA) and held at UCLA Nov. 8-9, Dr. Rivlin agreed that "desegregation could prove to be a cruel hoax" if educational realities are ignored. He also feared that "failure to integrate all pupils in a way that educational standards are raised for everyone" would creat e a two-track education system in American cities with "public schools for the poor and indifferent, and private schools for the affluent and concerned." But Dr. Rivlin called for better teacher preparation to enable city teachers to understand stand and motivate the disadvantaged children who are predominantly from minority groups. "While we recognize that hope has been destroyed in many of these children because their families can't fit into our predominant culture," Dr. Rivlin declared, "we must not assume that culture being 'different' means that it is 'better or worse." "Teachers properly trained to work in city schools will be prepared to build on the good points of children's own cultures while challenging them to..." STATE SENATOR'S COUNTY REPORT BY JOHN A. MURDY One of the more important items that may have special attention at the upcoming session of the California Legislature is an increase in judges salaries. I know all of us will moan and groan that we pay our government service people enough as it is, but as we move ahead in private industry salaries improve and we must also keep pace with the salary level of those in public service. 20 years ago a superior court judge ranked among the highest paid public official. This matched the dignity and respect we held for that judicial office. Sićne that time, however, the salary of a judge has not kept pace with other positions, even on a lower level of responsibility. Recently, the Conference of California Judges reported that superior court judges in Los Angeles receive less pay than the court or county clerk, the marshal, the undersheriff, the probation officer, and even some of the deputy and assistant district attorneys. Municipal judges receive lower pay than many deputy district attorneys, public defenders and deputy county counsels. Ornage County has the same problem. It is estimated that if the legislature were to increase judges salaries to where they belong now in comparison to other offices, an increase of 20 to 30 per cent would be in order. Imagine what that would do to Governor Brown's balanced budget. I think the judges deserve an increase in pay. I would rather see our government cut down on some other questionable services and give the judges the salary they deserve. Recent statistics released in Sacramento indicate one out of every two marriages in California ends in divorce. That doesn't exactly make for stable family life. It was also reported that California spent $192.5 million during 1962 in welfare assistance to needy children whose predicament was the direct result of divorce. One of Governor Brown's recent appointments to the Fair Employment Practices Commission has raised a few eyebrows what with the circulation of an initiative petition by the California Real Estate Association to outlaw the Fair Housing Act of California. The appointment went to 57-year-old Clive Graham, a Long Beach realtor and a past president (1958) of the California Real Estate Association. quotable There is an old age of the heart, and a youth that never grows old. — Mary Baker Eddy Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. — Samuel Ullman has been destroyed in many of these children because their families can't fit into our predominant culture," Dr. Rivlin declared, "we must not assume that culture being 'different' means that it is 'better or worse." "Teachers properly trained to work in city schools will be prepared to build on the good points of children's own cultures while challenging them to make learning in schools a part of their pattern of living," Rivlin said. That attempts to change the disadvantaged Negro's basic attitude toward education can be successful has been proved in experiments such as the Banneker Plan of St. Louis, Mo. The Banneker Plan is a long-term, well-devised operation to attack a serious school attendance problem in a 95 per cent Negro school district, working through the student's parents. It involves using all the available propaganda techniques to convince parents that education for their children is a necessity, and to get them to take responsibility for putting the youngsters back in school and keeping them there. The results: From January, 1958, to June, 1961, median scores in reading for 8th graders rose from 7.7 to 8.8; language from 7.6 to 9.1; and arithmetic from 7.9 to 8.7. Banneker School District children attend a high school in which students are separated into three tracks by achievement and ability levels. In the same 2½-year period, Banneker children assigned to Track I (highest level) increased from 7 to 22 per cent; in Track II, from 45.9 to 54.8 per cent; and the proportion in Track III fell from 47.1 to 10.9 per cent. Similar results have been reported in the Higher Horizons Project operated in some New York City schools. SIDEBAR By Bob Perlman Managing Editor Walking out of the Rotary Club meeting Monday afternoon, school superintendent Paul Shanks was so kind as to compliment The Gazette on some improvements, including the Reading Matter column we have been running on the editorial page. "I was particularly interested in the questions they answer," he said, speaking of the column's authors, Ralph and Erwin Pearlman. "These are the kind of questions parents are always asking," the superintendent continued, "and these fellows answer them the way questions should be answered — plainly, and directly, in clear simple English. No gobbledygook!" We're glad, of course, that the column passes muster. But the most interesting portion of Shanks' comment was his surprise in finding clear, communicative English being written. Unfortunately, the situation has grown so rough, we too are surprised when we find it. The problem appears to be that somewhere in a youngster's formative years he learns that it's almost nasty to write a simple, declarative English sentence. "Jim hit the ball" becomes somewhat obscene, and to make it socially acceptable the youngster learns to pretty it up and say "The ball was hit by Jim." Also, the planters of hidden persuaders and the image makers have abandoned the good-old active voice, simply because it is communicative, and direct. Now Mothers are Marching for the National Foundation. Only a few weeks ago it was Muscular Dystrophy, and the United Fund is busy with its drive—and it's in trouble, so double your efforts, please. Behind all this frantic effort on the part of all these good causes, is an interesting story in the fact that it's not like this everywhere. There are a few countries in the world where there is anything like this organized benevolence on a volunteer basis. It's not that we're so rich. If that were the case you'd expect to find people in a country with a per capita income 1-5 ours giving 20 cents for each dollar we donate. Not so. The ratio would be more like one penny for one dollar in such a country. In some countries, particularly in the Orient, there is not even the basic concept of volunteer community benevolence. Some time ago, this writer was employed as a publicist for a large charitable organization and had the privilege of escorting a Korean official on a tour of the office. The Korean's job when he re- Crucial in integrated schools. hope lies in changing their own culture or Harry Rivlin, dean of education at City Uniof New York, identifies the same problem but some different conclucessing the conference on action of the DisadvantAmerican," which was reed by the California ers Association (CTA) old at UCLA Nov. 8-9, Dr. agreed that "desegregaould prove to be a cruel if educational realities oared. Also feared that "failure grate all pupils in a way educational standards are for everyone" would cretwo-track education systle American cities with schools for the poor and ment, and private schools affluent and concerned." Dr. Rivlin called for betcher preparation to enty teachers to underand motivate the disadd children who are prently from minority we recognize that hope is destroyed in many of children because their can't fit into our prent culture," Dr. Rivlin al, "we must not assume culture being 'different' that it is 'better or others properly trained to city schools will be preto build on the good of children's own cullure challenging them to it's almost nasty to write a simple, declarative English sentence. "Jim hit the ball" becomes somewhat obscene, and to make it socially acceptable the youngster learns to pretty it up and say "The ball was hit by Jim." Also, the planters of hidden persuaders and the image makers have abandoned the good old active voice, simply because it is communicative, and direct communication is just what they want least. For example, in the sentence "The senator said he was for legalized bookmaking." The senator is unmistakably on the hook. If his public relations counsel has his way, however, the senator will be quoted like so — "It was indicated by the senator that he was not opposed to legalized bookmaking." The public relations artist's motive here would be that by minimizing the chance of anybody understanding the senator, he has minimized the chances of anybody getting upset. Unfortunately, we in this business have to take college graduates who have been nourished on such garbage and train them to write so the reader can understand the meaning of a story on first reading. LAW IN ACTION Dick Driver worked for the Ajax Trucking Company. One day Dick's truck stopped cold. He tried to start it. No luck. Dick hailed a passing trucker, George Goodhart. George said "Why don't we tow your truck to a wide spot in the road and call a garage to fix it?" Helpful George got out a big chain to pull Dick's truck, but it snapped. They used another chain, but it snapped, too, just as Sam Smith was driving by. The chain lashed out and shattered Sam's windshield and cut his eye badly. Sam sued, but the Ajax Company denied any fault. "George had done the harm," they said. "He had a poor chain, and it was his towing that snapped the chain. And George had one penny for one dollar in such a country. In some countries, particularly in the Orient, there is not even the basic concept of volunteer community benevolence. Some time ago, this writer was employed as a publicist for a large charitable organization and had the privilege of escorting a Korean official on a tour of the office. The Korean's job when he returned was going to be to try to stimulate in his people some of the feeling we here have that we are our brothers' keepers. "We're trying very hard," the Korean said, "but to be honest I'm dubious about the chances for any quick progress. "I find that even I myself am almost incredulous at all this—and believe me, its not just the tax deductions. "You could give double the deductions to my people, and they still would see no reason for helping their neighbor. Their family, yes, even a cousin so distant you people would not consider him a relative—but without that slight kinship, the mere accident of being part of the same community means nothing in our country." It appears the Ugly American isn't as ugly as he might be, altogether. others properly trained to city schools will be pre- build on the good of children's own cul- while challenging them to learning in schools a part pattern of living," Riv- attempts to change the staged Negro's basic at- ward education can be al has been proved in ents such as the Bann- man of St. Louis, Mo.anneker Plan is a long- well-devised operation to serious school attend- blem in a 95 per cent school district, working the student's parents. selves using all the avail- paganda techniques to parents that educa- their children is a and to get them to responsibility for putting gsters back in school ing them there. results: From January, June, 1961, median reading for 8th grad- from 7.7 to 8.8; lan- from 7.6 to 9.1; and from 7.9 to 8.7. School District chil- and a high school in students are separated tracks by achieve- ability levels. In the year period, Bannek- en assigned to Track level) increased from per cent; in Track II, to 54.8 per cent; and portion in Track III fell to 10.9 per cent. results have been re- the Higher Horizons operated in some New schools. A Promising Exchange TEACHER TO TEACHER PROJECT FOR IMPROVED- • INSTRUCTION • UNDERSTANDING