The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1942-10-23
FIVE YEARS OF LIVING IN THE
SOCIAL WORK LABORATORY

which they sat, listened, took notes
, crammed before exams, and hoped
, desperately to have made a good i'm
preston on the prof They wanted
action, and they wanted it outside
the class room. I must confess, I was
bit astonished at the vehemence
with which they wanted 1t. l was a
shy, quiet freshman, who had just
spent twelve years in schools where
students sat quietly in the class room
and were told what to do. The idea
that students might take a hand in
deciding what they would do, seemed
quite revolutionary. And privately,
was a little shocked that DR.. Tascher
so greatly trusted humanity in its
late teens and early twenties that
he would allow them such freedom.
The Plunge
The field work program began with
a community survey designed to de-
termine the needs and desires of the
city of Missoula for an adult educa-
ton program which the WPA had Of
| fered to present. The Social Work
Laboratory students planned the sur
vey, conducted hundreds of interviews
with townspeople from every walk of
life, and from every section of the
city, and then tabulated the results
for presentation to the WPA educa-
tional division The report was ac-
cepted most gratefully, and the adult
education program which ensued was
la most profitable one for those who
attended
Did the Students Learn?
But what, you may ask, were the
profits gained by the laboratory stu
dents who conducted the survey? Let
me say here and now, that probably |
the most obvious gain was their very !
evident satisfaction in having done a
Job, with capital ], and having done |
it well enough that they rendered the
town a real service. They had dis
proved the theory that students go to
school merely to absorb what they
can from the learned professors store
of knowledge and experience. They
had proved that students can be of
real service to community even
while they are still in the process of
educating themselves. And I use the
phrase educating themselves" adj
visedly, since it is my belief, con-
firmed by my five-years' experience
in the laboratory, that true education
cannot be handed to one on a platter.
What is education? Is it stored-up
fund Of facts, figures, and words? Or
IS true education the acquired ability
90 live constructively, work produc-
lively, and to build personality that Z
ian adjust itself to others gracefully
d with continually progressive
growth? The Social Work Labora-
DRY has convinced me that the latter p
s the only real education, and it has a
Llso convinced me that college is only a
prelude to lifelong process of edu- \
ating oneself College as the Social C
Work Lab sees it, is only the condi- 0
Toner by which one equips himself
0 begin the work of digging real s
ducation out of the years of living s
hat stretch ahead. E
beginning the Practice, s.
By the end of my freshman year, "
he Laboratory was two quarters old e.
stayed with it, in the same secre- ii
arial relationship, during the follow
1g three quarters. And during my 81
lnior year, it sponsored me in my b.
rst experience in field work ac- o.
witty. I began the compilation of a A
irectory of statewide associations in
[ontana, of which directory DIR.
ascher wrote in recent article. At /
he time | began the study, an "asso-
ation" was, to me, just an aggrega-