Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-12
Sad State of Schools


I read with great concern
The Stars February q ar
ticle on Sad State of Our
High Schools - Vocational
Subjects Getting Emphasis"
Vocational education is my
field of work; specifically, pre-
pairing juniors and seniors for
gainful employment through
cooperative training (one-
half day school. one-half day
work-training with firms in
the community.
Most of the students chan
neled to our programs are not
potential engineers-just av-
erage 10. from ITO or lower.
We wish some of the future
"Einsteins" would avail them
selves of one of our courses,
Just to broaden their view
points if for no other reason.
Job training improves their
basic skills and enhances their
opportunities for employment.
Over the past Is years Vir-
ginia's Statewide program has
given its graduates better than
60 per cent placement in firms
where they received their part
time training.
All of our vocational pro-
grams-home economics, COM
mercial education, driver edu-
cation (taken by the student
during his study hall time),
industrial arts. distributive
and consumer education-have
specific aims in rounding out
our high school students pro-
gram of public school educa-
ton. The wise selection of
electives is the secret to how
many and how we'll qualified
the entrants into engineering
careers may be.
The mass of our students
want useful and applicable
subjects today. and I believe
their interests will continue to
guide our philosophy of Sec
ondary education to meet in
dividual needs for all students.
Medical science has made bit
ter medicine sweet for our
children, and it is sound psy-
chology: we in vocational edu-
cation believe that there is
ample opportunity to teach
physics, math, and chem
iStry in a practical manner.
When the semi-illiterate Cd
masses of our vocational edu-
cation programs become snow
ed under by ''linguists" or "en-
gineers," we're in for a sad
economy. Who will do your
tipping, service your car, sell
you lingerie, fix your toaster,
print your letterheads, or dry
clean your clothes?
We need more scientists to-
day. But vocational education
hasn't taken them from our
academic offerings. Why don't
more students avail them
selves of languages. math and
science? The percentage fig
ures you quote seem very low
to me. We in vocational educa-
ton want to know what has
happened to students with
higher I. @. also. There's a gap
somewhere. However, I do be-
lieve that colleges have low
cred their standards to pass
out degrees on a wholesale
basis.
Robert j. Seidel.
~ y *
Some years ago, new meth
DDS of teaching reading were
invented. Phonetics dearning
to sound the letters in world
was out. Train" the children
learned (and learn, by me-
morizing that the shape of
the word looks like a train.
Same kind of tricks with other
words. Fast reading results!
Only, years later. these fast
learners of reading showed ter
rible weaknesses. They couldn't
spell, couldn't pronounce a new
word. They looked at the shape
of the word, not the letters, as
they had been taught, and
tried to guess it. They had de-
veloped blindness to the letters
making up the word. Many
thousands of men and women
will be handicapped by this
weakness all their lives, in
reading and spelling.
Now a wonderful new trick
to teach arithmetic! DR.. Mac
vaugh's system. You don't
have to learn the basic fact of
nine plus three equals twelve.
No You have a trick to give
you the answer. Take away
from the 3 one, and you have
2. That is the second figure of
your answer. You learn a whole
series of these tricks! And
you don't need to know or I'M
derStand addition, subtraction
or multiplication.
Result? The same thing
that happened to our readers
and spoilers. Ten or fifteen