The Coral Gables Times

Some members of the Round Table panel of suburban newspapermen and women who contributed to the findings of this article:

1. Harry A. Arnott, Press, Dearborn, Mich. 2. Charles D. Cabaniss, Texas Mesquiter, Mesquite, Tex. 3. J. Hart Clinton, Times, San Mateo, Calif. 4. Ted Farrington, News, Richfield, Minn. 5. Robert D. Fowler, Daily Journal, Marietta, Ga. 6. Robert J. Gusetti, Beacon, Warwick, R.I. 7. Bruce Helberg, American, Bellevue, Wash. 8. Norman F. Hirsch, News, Highland Park, Ill. 9. Al Huneke, Western Hills Press, Cheviot, Ohio 10. Janice Klouser, Daily Tribune, Royal Oak, Mich. 11. H. Chester Morris, Public Spirit, Hatboro, Pa. 12. Richard Nichols, Daily News-Texan, Arlington, Tex. 13. Elizabeth S. Ryan, Review, Lake Oswego, Ore. 14. Muriel G. Saver, Messenger, Norwood, Mass. 15. David N. Schutz, Tribune, Redwood City, Calif. 16. Walt Woodward, Bainbridge Review and North Kitsap News, Kitsap, Wash.

Education Dollars Continued from page 17

schools—one the typical Florida school designed for maximum breeze cooling; the other, with the same educational space, designed for air conditioning. They were bid in, respectively, at $680,000 and $664,000. South Park High School, outside of Beaumont, Tex.,—an unusually compact design, fully air conditioned—will cost, it's estimated, about 15% less than typical schools in the area. In part, these savings result from use of interior (windowless) spaces. Whether such spaces are wholly acceptable to teachers and pupils is disputed. Thus teacher reactions at Hillsdale High School, San Mateo, Cal., have been generally favorable, but some visitors there still get a suggestion of claustrophobia. The increasing tendency toward all-year use of schools cannot be developed in warmer areas of the country, however, unless internal temperatures are such as to provide reasonable comfort. The need to make the most efficient use of every qualified teacher becomes clearer when you learn that the annual input of new teachers is currently filling only about one-third of the demand. There are two common methods of spreading the existing teacher staff over a wider spectrum of usefulness. One is team teaching. The other is the increasing use of audio-visual aids, especially television. The majority of our respondents report that one or both of these ideas is in use in their high schools, and to some extent in elementary schools. Tv is very widely used, indeed; team teaching is somewhat less generally popular but is gaining. BUT HERE AGAIN we find the need for long-range planning, since both team teaching and tv give best results in buildings specially designed to make use of their effectiveness. The basic idea of team teaching is to get away from "the dominance of the unchangeable classroom" where one teacher teaches a succession of classes at the level of the class average. When teachers work together in teams, students can be arranged in large or small groups, as the subject, the needs of the individual student, and the qualities of each teacher may suggest. Time and talent of teachers can be used more professionally and productively. Spare time becomes available for lesson preparation, team planning, and individual counselling. These benefits are enhanced by using nonprofessional people or mechanical aids to handle clerical tasks that take up time of many teachers. To get maximum results, the building must be flexible—this calls for movable space dividers, spaces for teachers' offices, and for individual study large areas that can be used as a whole or subdivided It's clear that wide use of educational tv will also require both large and small spaces. Smaller schools may have to depend on such outside educational-tv programs as are available. These are increasing in number. Oak Park, Mich., and Sylvania, Ohio, are among the communities where the airborne transmission of Purdue University's educational programs is being used. In larger schools, there will be a trend toward setting up originating tv facilities for the school's own closed-circuit tv system—a new challenge to the versatility and ingenuity of the teaching staff. Such a system is included in the plans for Warwick, R.I.'s, new high school; Bellevue, Wash., reports that installation of an ultrahigh-frequency tv channel is underway. One criticism of team teaching from parents and the community is that "our children will be exposed to unskilled handling by teacher's aides or other not-fully-qualified personnel." To this, proponents of team teaching reply that there's no system by which any large school can avoid having a teaching staff that varies in experience and ability. In the team system, experienced teachers can guide and help those of less experience. Teachers with special aptitudes can be so assigned as to make the best use of their talents (with pupils grouped under teachers whose qualities are best adapted to their needs). A system of using newly graduated teachers as "interns" to assist more senior teachers as at Ridgewood High School, Norridge, Ill., is—local educators say—about as good a way to develop young instructors as can be thought of. (It works with doctors!) Also the team system—as our report from Lake Oswego, Ore., points out—enables the best teachers to be raised to higher salary levels (as team leaders) without making administrators out of them. Incidentally, one serious teacher problem in some areas of suburbia—reported from Highland Park and several communities in Westchester County, N.Y.—is lack of attractive housing for teachers at costs in keeping with their salaries. PARENTS' ANXIETY is evident about "too much automation"—is the machine replacing the teacher? This fear is being dispelled when parents visit and see such electronic marvels as the language laboratories in actual use. Majority opinion seems to be favorable—"the machines strengthen the teacher, not replace him." Electronic data-processing reduces clerical work—notably in making out monthly reports and improving class scheduling. Intercoms tie groups together when required. "Ultimately," predicts Educational Facilities Laboratories, "the school will become as automated as the American home where the housewife has been freed of so many laborious and boring tasks." But again, the need is for planning ahead, adapting building plans to the needs of the equipment to be housed. Will schools built to these new design-requirements (they'll be termed "fancy" or "gadgety" by some skeptics) be fantastically expensive? Not necessarily. What could be fancier to the eye of an old-timer than design-in-the-round—say the steel geodesic dome that now covers the circular field house of West Bethesda, Md.'s, new high school? Though it offers 4,200 more square feet of interior space than the rectangular box design considered as an alternative, seats 1,200 more occupants, and is free of all internal supports that obstruct movement, this field house was bid in at $6,000 less than the rectangular. There will be many other such ingenious expedients as the new-style construction needs are met by advancing architectural skills. The replies received to our questionnaire add up to one conclusion: Our suburban communities are going to go on exploring these new, hopefully better ways of designing, constructing, equipping, and using school space. In general, structures themselves will cost relatively less; equipment will cost quite a lot more; more money must be found for more versatile teachers to meet the new challenges. The money will be found. The challenges will be met. The children of suburbia will be equipped to face the demands of a future that is growing incredibly complex to many of their elders. When Lamphere, Mich., ordered an observatory and planetarium for its new high school, its taxpayers were planning ahead for children who must keep pace with the broad advances of the space age. And Lamphere is not planning alone. Suburbia Today, May 1962 19

"Some of us kids are forming a group to help parents with our homework." SUBURBIA TODAY